


The Small Stuff

by Darkfrog24 (Ithil), Ithil



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Chloe Decker Finds Out, Chloe Decker Needs A Hug, Comedy, Dan Espinoza Gets the Last Laugh for Once - Freeform, Ella Lopez Finds Out, Gen, Humor, Lucifer Doesn't Know Chloe Knows, Season 3, intellectual, religious analysis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22772515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithil/pseuds/Darkfrog24, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithil/pseuds/Ithil
Summary: When Lucifer falls asleep at the precinct, a random act of snooping reveals his secret to Chloe and Ella.  When a forensic scientist and a detective go looking for the truth, what could go wrong?
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Ella Lopez, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 128
Kudos: 676





	1. Good Morning!

**Author's Note:**

> Set during season 3. Rating may change.

"Go on. Wake them up."

" _You_ wake them up!" hissed Ella.

Chloe shot her a look and stared back through the glass into the conference room. 

The previous night had been one of the hottest on record—Lucifer had made several cutting remarks about climate change rendering the planet more like Hell—and the building's air conditioner had gone off to the great ventilation system in the sky. 

Chloe had been about to head out to interview a witness when a suspect's lawyer had sent over boxes upon boxes of corporate records, technically in compliance with a warrant while burying any actual incriminating evidence in the proverbial haystack.

Lucifer had bragged that no one could spot a shady deal like the Devil and, practically dared by Pierce, had volunteered to stay behind and go through paperwork. Daniel and an intern from the prosecutor's office rounded out the quartet. After foiling Lucifer's attempt to get Chloe to stay with an offer of her favorite order-in sushi, Chloe had grabbed Ella and a uniform and headed out while the four of them settled in to dig through the boxes.

Even first thing in the morning, it was still stifling. An unsurprising number of people had either found something useful to do somewhere else or called in sick, and the floor was uncannily quiet. Ella and Chloe looked at each other and then through the blinds into the conference room.

A healthy family of sales receipts was stuck under Daniel's left hand, fluttering in time with his soft snores. Pierce had his chair tipped back, mouth open toward the ceiling. A tiny puddle of drool next to Intern Rodney's head was making its way across the tabletop. Judging by the tottering stacks of paper and the scribblings on the whiteboard, they'd gotten pretty far before passing out from heat, exhaustion or both.

And at some point, all four of them had taken their shirts off.

Ella shook her head. "We could report this as hostile work environment."

Chloe looked at her sideways, gesturing with one open palm to Intern Rodney's roll of twentysomething baby fat. "I don't get to say this much when Lucifer's involved, but it's clearly not a sex thing."

"Yeah, but do you think it would stay that way if a bunch of women went in there?"

Chloe sighed.

"You know, Pierce is in pretty good shape for a guy his age," said Ella. "And I do not presume to know why you and Espinoza split up but daaaaaaaamn it was not them rhomboids."

"Now who's being hostile?"

"It's not like they can hear me!"

"Shhhh," Chloe held up a hand, still staring into the Lucifer-Pierce-Daniel-Spare Guy mess.

"I heard you're not supposed to shush. The hissing sound riles people up."

"Whatever, stop talking!" Chloe tilted her head to the side. They really did need to get back to work. Chloe set her lips in a line. This wasn't one of Trixie's sleepovers and she wasn't the precinct mommy. But—

"Most people are assholes before their morning coffee and Pierce is my boss. What's the best way to wake up your boss without getting fired?"

Ella looked down for a minute, then brightened. "Wake up the guy who technically doesn't work here and make him do it!"

Chloe blinked. "That's actually a great idea."

"Thanks, I'm here all week," said Ella.

Chloe carefully took hold of the door handle, turning it downward without a click. She slowly pushed the door open and stepped silently into the carpeted conference room as Ella gave her two thumbs up from behind the blinds. Careful not to step on any of the papers or plastic Sushi-4-Ushi takeout containers littering the floor like crunchy land mines, she padded her sensible shoes over to Lucifer.

He sat half-in-half out of the only conference chair that still had its original wheels, face resting on his folded arms as his legs stretched out underneath the table. Lucifer had a sixth sense for when he was being ogled. When he was awake, anything more than a blink in his direction got her triple its weight in self-aggrandized teasing. Chloe took in his steady breathing. Ella's smirk and a hostile work environments be darned, she stopped for a look. 

Whatever gym he went to (or whatever super expensive concierge trainer) it was worth it. Lucifer's arms were lean and solid, the muscles pretty but functional. She couldn't see anything of his chest from this angle, but his back—

Chloe stopped.

"Something's not right," she whispered, staring around the room and then back at Lucifer.

"Yeah," answered Ella, ducking her head around the doorframe. "You got four overcooked dudes in a sealed room It probably smells like dead meatloaf. Wake them up so they can shower!"

For all that Charlotte Richards sniped that it had missed her fashion sense, Chloe had built her career on knowing when the Small Stuff Did Not Match. Chloe narrowed her eyes at her partner, watching his shoulders rise and fall with steady breath, muscles moving beneath translucent olive skin like a whale slipping through the waves. Her brow cleared and she motioned to Ella with a flutter of her hand. Ella tiptoed in, face in a pained grimace as Chloe mouthed " _looklooklook!_ " and pointed at Lucifer's back.

Ella looked at Chloe. She looked at Lucifer's back. She looked at Chloe. Then she raised an eyebrow and nodded into an appreciative grin. _Nice._

"No!" murmured Chloe. Well also technically yes, but, "The scars are gone."

"Scars?"

"Scars," Chloe mouthed. "He had scars." She half rolled her eyes. " _Said_ it was from cutting off his wings," she mimed a scissor-snip motion with one hand and then made a pantomime bird.

Ella frowned, "You saw them?" she mouthed, pointing at her eyes.

Chloe nodded. He'd _definitely_ had two scars in the middle of his back that he absolutely would not let her touch. They'd been front and center on the whiteboard in her head. Some injury that he'd never got over and written into his metaphor as severed angel wings. Larry Morningstar, son of a plumber in Connecticut, betrayed in terrible water purification accident, flees to L.A.

Ella skootched in beside Chloe and gave Lucifer another look. "Makeup?" she mouthed. "It _is_ Hollywood."

Yes... Chloe thought. The scars might have been another fake from a city full of movie magic. He certainly could have swapped favors with a special effects artist and acquired something that would complement his stage name so he could put on a performance for the gullible detective he'd just swindled into letting him tag along.

Lucifer gave a quiet sigh against the table and turned his head in the opposite direction.

Chloe took a breath and reminded herself that she and Lucifer had only just met when she'd seen his scars. Was it that big a deal if it had been an act? Maybe saying his wings had grown back was his way of babystepping toward being honest with her. But the excuse felt sour. The intensity on his face as he'd held her wrist had felt so real. The scars didn't bother him, but the injury did, and he'd let her see it.

"No," Ella put her hand on Chloe's wrist as if reading her mind. "I mean it could be makeup _now_ ," she whispered. "Don't they make stuff for people with burns?"

Chloe turned back to Lucifer. His skin _seemed_ perfect. But a guy who could afford movie-quality prosthetic scars could afford heavy duty cover-up, right? She nodded, "Lucifer's super vain _and_ spends a lot of time naked."

Ella craned her neck until she saw Lucifer's white shirt draped against the chair where he'd put it in an attempt to keep it from getting wrinkled. Ella carefully pinched the fabric and pulled it silently up to eye level. She turned it around. "That look like rub-off to you?" she said, miming a hand against her own low-key contouring.

Chloe frowned, looking back at Lucifer. Then she looked at Ella. She drummed her fingers against the table.

None of the men moved.

"Lucifer," she whispered, just a hair louder than before. Ella put both hands over her face and teetered up and down on her toes. He didn't budge.

"There are twenty supermodels downstairs," Ella said at about half normal volume.

Chloe leaned down so that her mouth was about a foot from Lucifer's free ear. "I'm not wearing any—bras," she said, wincing at the lameness.

Nothing.

He. Was. _Out_.

Ella pulled a clean latex glove out of her pocket and quietly slipped it on. She held up a single finger and made eye contact.

_Should_ they? Lucifer had been pretty clear he didn't want anyone touching his scars, and it was very personal, very private.

Finally, Chloe nodded, stepping out of the way and craning her neck to watch as Ella tiptoed over to Lucifer, pulled in a breath, and carefully ran a finger between his shoulder blade and spine in some twenty-first-century version of the white glove test.

There was a FWOOOOOMP and a rush of air as two enormous wings rose from Lucifer's back like a cloudbank rising over a mountain. Ella jumped three feet in the air, wrapping her arms and legs around Chloe's side. Papers whirled and the Sushi-4-Ushi box flipped over a pile of cease-and-desist letters onto Intern Rodney's head as the room was bathed in a light that seemed to come from a reborn star.

"What-what- _what?!_ " Ella jabbered in whisper-mode as Chloe gasped, "It's all true! _It's all true!_ " staggering back with an armful of crazed forensic scientist, who choked out, "Too tight, Decker! _Tootight!_ "

Lucifer's head settled further into his arms as his wings stretched in the morning light, throbbing like any animal limb upon waking. He murmured as they settled down against the conference table. The right wing flipped to rest slightly over his head, shielding his eyes from the sunlight like a pigeon keeping its head out of the rain.

"Mi bisabuela estaba contando la verdad todo el tiempo," murmured Ella. "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my GOD."

" _SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!_ " hissed Chloe.

"Hm?" came a noise from underneath the feathers. Chloe dumped Ella on the floor. She sprang back up on her sneakers just as the wings melted back into Lucifer's body. He pushed himself off the conference table and stretched in the early morning light, muscles humming just as his wings had a moment earlier. Appalachian Spring might have been playing.

"Uhhhhh..." he muttered with the faintest waft of morning breath. He cracked one eye open. "Oh. I'm still here, am I?"

Chloe gulped. Ella's throat gave a squeak.

"You should never shush, Detective. The hissing sound draws attention. I should know. I've had my share of awkward mornings." 

Even staring dazed at an angel with office bed-head, Ella remained capable of jabbing Chloe in the ribs.

"Why are you two so..." he shook his head and looked across the room. "Well this isn't how I prefer to wake up surrounded by half-dressed men. Is there any of that dross that passes for coffee around here?"

"No coffee!"

" _Wedrankallthecoffeesorry!!_ "

Lucifer blinked. "That explains quite a bit, Miss Lopez." He looked at Chloe. "On the one hand, I desperately need to shower. On the other, we did find something last night and I'd love to show it to you before Daniel or Lieutenant Stick-in-the-mud do." He spotted his shirt lying on the table and reached toward it, then pulled up short. "Ah," he said, "would you two give me a few minutes? It seems part of my body has a mind of its own this morning." Misreading the two blank looks and Ella's meeping sound, he added, "It seems I won't be standing up just yet, at least not in summer-weight slacks." He raised an eyebrow, "Unless..."

"No," deadpanned Chloe.

"Yeahseriouslyhostileworkenvironment," muttered Ella.

Grasping Ella by the upper arm, Chloe backed out of the conference room and shut the door behind them.

"WHAT?" said Ella. 

"I know," breathed Chloe.

Ella shuddered. "I think I need someone to slap me."

"Uh—" Chloe started. Then Ella's palm hit her face with a smack. Chloe gaped. "That was _me_!"

"Sorry!" said Ella. "I have to get my wires uncrossed before I go Full Stooges. "He's really—" Ella looked over her shoulder where they could still see into the conference room from around the edge of Officer Miller's desk. Lucifer had leaned enough to his left to reach Daniel with one of the leftover chopsticks, which he was carefully inserting into the sleeping detective's left nostril.

Chloe banged her head against her palm. "So _that's_ the big Morningstar mystery?" she said, watching Lucifer gingerly get to his feet and careful steps around Intern Rodney toward the still-sleeping lieutenant. "He really just _is_? That's it?"

"Are you disappointed?" asked Ella. "This is proof, Chloe. Things you can see and touch. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Chloe stared into the conference room. Daniel gave a lurch and grabbed at the chopstick.

"You are," said Ella. "You're disappointed."

"I'm a detective," she said. "And this is..." she gestured at the conference room, palm up. Too easy? Too hard? Lucifer was hovering over Pierce, rubbing his hands together. Daniel was waving the chopstick at him. Even from the back, she could recognize the don't-you-dare that he'd perfected when Trixie was six. How could this guy who got bed head and ate Cheetos and whose feet made just the right sound when he followed her past the crime scene tape be a creature of legend?

"So we've been working with the devil," said Ella. "Growing up, Sister Judith told us he comes to Earth to corrupt the innocent."

"He doesn't _corrupt_ people," Chloe answered on reflex.

On the other side of the glass, Lucifer tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. Dan shrugged and waved if-you-must with one hand while Lucifer stuck a rolled-up tube of paper into Pierce's open mouth. The lieutenant sputtered, wheeling his arms as his chair tilted forward. Chloe couldn't see Dan's face from this angle, but Lucifer had both hands over his mouth, unabashedly _giggling_.

"Oh _there's_ the diabolical enemy of mankind," she said.

"Well he does look just like the dog from Duck Hunt," answered Ella.

Chloe felt her mind get quiet. Was she watching a grown man picking on other men very much his own size or a supernatural twelve-year-old poking rodents in their maze?

"You're right," said Chloe.

"I know. 'Bout what?" asked Ella.

"We need to get the wires uncrossed." She laid a hand on Ella's arm. "Come on."  
.  
.  
.

"You sure he won't find this?" asked Ella.

"He _never_ comes in here. He called it an elephant graveyard for joy."

The building's soft room, a waiting room for children while their parents were interviewed, arrested, processed or otherwise having trauma-inducing experiences, was upstairs. This was the soft room storage closet. In here were backup items, toys and supplies too depressing for actual use but technically still good enough for any well-meaning maintenance person or civilian employee to get yelled at for throwing away. Barbies with heads plucked as hairless as Buddhist nuns sat in stiff-smiling meditation over gnawed toy phones and saliva-soaked Little Golden Books. Against one metal shelf of spare clothes and graffitied basketballs, Chloe had stacked a purloined whiteboard.

"You're a scientist," said Chloe, squaring the board so it hit the light. "I'm a detective. We'll put together the facts. We can figure this out."

"I'm also a believer," Ella said carefully. "Decker, the devil and God aren't just legends for me. I just didn't think it was _him_."

Chloe turned around. "Ella, no way did what we just saw not make a difference to you."

"It did," Ella answered. "It has me wondering if proof invalidates my faith or if I'm going to Hell for being friends with the Devil. On my confirmation day, I made a vow to oppose him and all his works. That was not just talk to keep my grandma happy."

Chloe kept the sigh behind her teeth. The truth was she knew how Ella felt. Everything in her said that Lucifer was a human guy who was just a little bit weird, that inside his skin were bones that got older every day and guts and hormones and blood full of too many triglycerides, just like everyone else in L.A. She _wanted_ to believe it. But what did that mean about her? Did she really value evidence and proof or did she only like them when they told her what she wanted to hear? She _should_ be able to change her mind when new evidence came to light, even if it was a pair of physics-defying angel wings. An investigator who couldn't make that adjustment was as big a hypocrite as a Jesus fan who didn't want to feed the poor or whatever it was he'd wanted people to do.

"I mean... if Mary Magdalene wasn't really a prostitute then maybe the medieval legends about the devil aren't true either, but what if they are? Is his time here in L.A. part of some big plan or a giant trick and does Heaven really only take the absolute best people and is Purgatory real and did God really make the world in six days..." Ella leaned forward, not quite putting her head between her knees but close.

Chloe got quiet, watching Ella breathe. She was absolutely certain of one thing: She did not want to do this alone. And if she pushed Ella too far or too fast, she'd be doing this alone.

Chloe uncapped the marker and squeaked two words across the whiteboard.

"So we won't start there," Chloe said carefully. "We won't tell Lucifer that we know. He hasn't hurt anyone—" okay so she was glossing a little there "—and we've got no reason to think he's going to start."

Ella blinked back at her.

"We'll start with the small stuff."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plan is **this is going to be a bit episodic**. I have a few things I want this story to do, but I absolutely AM also taking requests on what kinds of stupid or trivial questions Ella and Chloe should explore with Lucifer so that their brains don't break. I am also still looking for a plot-level beta.
> 
> Ella said, "My great grandmother was telling the truth the whole time!"
> 
> "Appalachian Spring" is by Copland. You might know it as the song that plays at the beginning of every Foghorn Leghorn cartoon.
> 
> My goal is for this to get a bit intellectual, but don't worry. If I learned anything from Red vs. Blue fandom it's that what makes this show work is that it is FUNNY.


	2. Starting Small

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe and Ella work out their first question. Daniel is along for the ride.

"Okay," said Chloe, weight shifting on her feet as she eyed the blank whiteboard like a lioness sizing up her prey. "We've got about five minutes before Pierce and the others realize we're gone. So what's something simple that we can find out about, just to get started?"

Ella gulped, sneakers splayed out to the sides where she perched on a pink American Princess Tea Time chair with chipped paint and a missing leg where a nine-year-old had ripped it off to vampire-stab Officer Michaelson. "Can't be anything obvious," she said, holding up both hands. "Don't tip him off that we know. I _want_ to believe that he's our goofy nightclub-owning friend, even if he's also something else, but I am _scared_ , Decker. The stakes could not be higher."

Chloe's eyes drifted off to the right and she picked up a pair of markers. They squeaked in her hands and the whiteboard suddenly had one red header and one green. "We'll make a better framework later," she said. "For now, I say a question, and you tell me which side it goes on."

Ella swallowed and nodded.

Chloe looked off to her right, trying not to be distracted by the collection of severed baby doll heads with glasses, fangs and villain eyebrows drawn on in permanent marker. "What's Hell like?"

"Red," said Ella. Chloe uncapped the red marker and scrawled "Hell" on the right side of the white board under "BIG STUFF."

"Do his deals actually corrupt people into going to hell like your Sunday School teacher said?"

"Sister Judith taught Tuesdays, and red," said Ella.

"God."

"Red."

Chloe held out a palm. "How about how the hell is Charlotte Richards his stepmom?"

"Red?" Ella winced apologetically.

Chloe squeezed her eyes shut. This was too big, still too big. What did _she_ actually want to know? She had a sudden image of a smirking face asking her about desire. Even under the lids, she had to roll her eyes. Stupid man. Stupid—wait. 

Chloe cracked one eye open. "Is it possible," she started, "that he's _not_ any kind of... That he's a guy who somehow has wings and just _thinks_ he's an angel?"

"Marvel did that in their Ultimate universe," said Ella. "Is this 'Thor' fella really a Viking space god or is he a normal-for-the-comics mutant with lightning powers who also happens to have a normal case of crazy." Chloe nodded. Ella gave a sad half-smile. "Did it seem like that to you?"

_Glowing with the light of the divine,_ Lucifer had described his wings. And that was just what they did. Chloe's throat let out a frustrated growl. Stupid angel-winged evil spirit whatever-he-was.

"I get that same feeling whenever my friend Ray—" Ella stopped.

Chloe turned back to the whiteboard. "We've got to come up with something. Pierce is going to tell someone to look for us any second, and we've still got a normal-for-L.A. case to solve."

Ella's face broke into a smile. Stepping forward, she took the green marker out of Chloe's left hand and stepped up to where the whiteboard said "SMALL STUFF."

"So we'll ask him something about the case."

.  
.  
.

.  
.  
.

Daniel Espinoza rolled the kinks out of his shoulders and watched Lieutenant Pierce glare at the gratuitously shirtless nightclub kook.

"I see you've still got that gag reflex, Lieutenant."

"Did you just shove evidence into my throat?" demanded Pierce, blue eyes fuming. 

Lucifer waved the saliva-stained paper. "Don't get your Y-fronts in a knot. It's a coupon for free spring rolls."

Dan watched the lieutenant simmer. He knew he shouldn't have let Lucifer wake Pierce up that way, but on the one hand, it was fun to see anyone else get grief and on the other, it took one sneaky bastard to know another, and something about Pierce just didn't sit right.

"Anyway," Lucifer swept that ridiculous tailored shirt around his shoulders with the grace of a Vegas showgirl. "Ms. Lopez and the Detective were just here." Stepping past the ruff-haired Pierce, he took hold of the lawyer kid's shoulder and gave it a little shake.

"I'm okay, Mom! I—" Rodney Park looked around the table and turned red as a beet.

Lucifer raised an eyebrow at Dan as if to say, "See? _He_ pranks himself."

Rodney shifted uncomfortably, hands fluttering across the table. "Did someone move that copy of the victim's pre-nup?" he asked. "It looks like there was a tornado in here."

Pierce started to stand up and then sat back down again. "Where did you say Decker went?"

"I asked her and Ms. Lopez to excuse us for a minute."

Daniel pressed his mouth shut. What had been _in_ that takeout?

Pierce gave a disgruntled noise and said, "I keep a change of clothes in my office. Get cleaned up, you three." He levered himself upright and made for the door.

"Feeling a bit under the weather, Lieutenant?" asked Lucifer.

"Shut up," said Marcus as he sidestepped his way out of the room.

Rodney rubbed his puff of twentysomething hair and blinked slowly. "Is it just me," he asked, "or was he negging the heck out of Detective Decker last night?"

Daniel twisted toward Rodney in surprise, registering with annoyance that Lucifer had mirrored the movement.

"You know," Rodney sank down in his shoulders like a turtle, "when you say something bad about a woman so she'll work for your approval?"

"Did you just quote a pickup artist technique?" Daniel asked Rodney.

"Did you just admit that you know what those are?" Lucifer asked Daniel.

"Didn't see you reaching for a dictionary," Dan glowered.

"True," said Lucifer. "We used something similar in hell. Never underestimate the torture capacity of romantic mind games. But still, _Rodney_..." he waved a finger.

"I read a book about it when I was in high school," said Rodney, hugging his shirt around his shoulders. "Figured..."

"...better than sitting on your never-been-laid arse feeling sorry for yourself?" Lucifer commented as Rodney gave a shrugging nod. "While I commend your decision to put actual effort toward fulfilling your desires, I hope you know you can do better than some cheap tricks and a rotten attitude."

The young lawyer gave a rattling, "Uhhhhhhhhh..." Daniel shook his head and reached for his shirt.

"Hm," murmured Lucifer. "Well I suppose I'm not too good to pop one off first thing in the morning. Tell me, young Rodney..."

Daniel pulled his shirt over his head. Amenadiel had mentioned on the way back from improv that Lucifer had learned neurolinguistic programming as a teenager, a fancy way of saying power of suggestion. It wasn't as if he never used mental tricks himself. Deep down, most people secretly wanted to spill their guts and all they really needed was someone—detective or devil—to give them permission.

"I want ...a girlfriend ... _so bad_ ," he gulped out. "There's this woman I like, but..." As usual, once the suspect took that first step, the rest of the words spilled out of him, like bucket tipping over. Daniel finished getting dressed as Rodney blathered on about how skipping three grades meant he went through high school with puberty leaking out his pores and none of the hot girls would give him the time of day, then full-throttle through college and struggling to make _Law Review_ meant he didn't have a spare minute to figure out women.

"Oh dear," Lucifer cut him off. "Don't worry, Lucifer's here to help. Let's say I help you woo a suitable companion. You repay me with a favor of my choosing later on. Deal?"

"Uh... Okay?"

Dan rolled his eyes. He'd have to remind Rodney to double wrap it with whatever Brittney Lucifer roped into doing the deed.

"Step one—hit the showers immediately. Wait, no, hit them after I do. That locker room should be declared a biohazard." Dan rolled his eyes. This coming from a guy who probably had so many strains of herpes that they'd founded their own intramural sports league.

Lucifer held up Rodney's shirt, turning it left and right, fiddling a thumb at the stitching. "Step two: Better clothes. How much does the DA's office pay you?"

"Lucifer, he's an _intern_ ," said Daniel.

"They sent us a mere peon? I must talk to Charlotte about that. But what's that got to do with his remuneration?"

"Charlotte's entry level," Dan added, and at Lucifer's blank look, "she has no say in how much the interns get paid or who's sent where." Why did he bother explaining things to him? It was all so he could flaunt how little he had to care about the puny concerns or normal people with budgets and bosses. Another asshole power trip.

Lucifer shook his head. "Step three," he said to Rodney. "Confidence. Charming a woman is like playing the piano or rigging for shibari. It takes _practice_. Forget about this woman you've got your eye on _for now_ ," Lucifer held up both hands when Rodney opened his mouth. "Instead, ask out the next woman you see."

"Are you sure?" asked Rodney

"Of course. You're smart, you're young, you're—" Lucifer eyed him up and down. "—probably going to clean up all right, and you punish evil for a living. Never look at a woman and think you're not good enough for her."

Intern Rodney nodded sternly and then stepped out of the conference room. With the door still open, he gave a big smile and Daniel heard him say. "Hi, Ella! I was wondering if you're not doing anything lat—hrrrrk!" Rodney lurched back as Lucifer grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and pulled him back.

Rodney's eyes crossed to focus on the finger in front of his face.

"You're not good enough for her," said Lucifer.

"Is this part of the lesson?"

"Yeah, come on," said Daniel.

"Are you going to say I'm wrong, Daniel?" Lucifer demanded.

Dan looked at Rodney, opened his mouth, and then shut it again.

"But—I—uh..." Rodney's mouth screwed up. "Oh."

"It's all right," said Lucifer. "We'll try again later."

Dan looked through the door to see Ella and Chloe through the glass, the Venetian blinds casting shadow stripes across them like two tigers hiding in the trees. Dan frowned. What were they talking about?

"You sure you want to start with that?" he read on Chloe's lips.

Ella nodded. "It's perfect. He'll—" Ella cut off as Dan got up and opened the door. She actually gulped. She had a weird timid look as her eyes went from Lucifer to himself to Rodney.

"He's not here," said Daniel. When she blinked, he added, "Pierce. He went to his office."

"Oh. Right," she stepped inside. "So. Uh," she said as Rodney got his clothes back into his own possession and began covering up his pudge.

"Lucifer said you found something," Chloe popped in behind Ella. 

Ella jumped into the air with a meeping sound.

"I'm sorry!" said Chloe.

"No, I'm sorry!" said Ella.

Lucifer leaned toward him, "They apparently drank _all_ the coffee," he said in sotto. Dan nodded. Ella on triple-caff was three handfuls and the crook of your elbow. Still... "Yes, Detective. Rodney!" he said cheerfully. The intern looked up from where his face was stuck half-in, half-out of his shirt collar. "Want to field this one?"

"Right." Rodney's voice un-muffled as his nose jumped past the last button. "There was something funny in the pre-nup. It didn't match the rest of the papers for the businesses the victim and his wife owned together." Rodney gave a quick run-down.

"Translating that from property law into English, it looks like the late husband may have been doing some double-play with the marital assets. I've helped my share of bored spouses screw around, but if you want real fireworks, screw around with that hard-earned cash," said Lucifer. Dan rolled his eyes.

"I'm going back to reinterview the wife," said Chloe. "And Ella's coming with me to..." she trailed off.

"Collect evidence!" finished Ella. "Of which there might be some. You never know."

"Well a few more hours, and young Rodney and I should have this—"

"You're coming with me, Lucifer," said Chloe. "If she knew about all this, then that's motive for her to kill her husband, and you're better at reading people than anyone I know."

"Ah," Lucifer's eyes darted left. "I'm not sure that's—"

Interviewing witnesses was the one part of detective work that Lucifer was actually good at. Why was he— Daniel blinked. "Wait, you're going to catch the wife at work?"

"Mm hm," Chloe nodded.

"Surely we can tell her to meet us here? Or at her home? Or at Lux!" Lucifer brightened. "A few rounds of top shelf and she'll be singing like a canary!"

"No, I want to catch her at work, in front of all the..." Chloe swallowed. "People."

"Ah," Lucifer looked around. "Daniel and Rodney need me here, don't you, fellows?"

"Oh I don't know," Dan gave a full-on smirk. "How about we both go?"

"Great," Chloe took hold of Lucifer's left wrist, grabbing his shirt—which he still wasn't wearing—with her other hand. "You can get dressed in the car."

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"You know, you could have stayed and gone through the rest of the financials with Rodney, Dan," said Chloe.

"I can do that after the AC's fixed," Daniel answered from the back seat. He managed to keep the smug out of his voice. Lucifer looked like he'd swallowed a sweat sock. Heat wave be damned, he wasn't going to miss _this_ for the goddamned world.

Ella—who'd claimed shotgun for once—leaned over and whispered in Chloe's ear.

"You sure you want to start there?" Chloe murmured back. Ella nodded softly. Dan eyed Chloe's messy bun and then Ella's ponytail. What was going on and why hadn't he been looped in?

"So, uh, Lucifer," Chloe said in a false-bright tone as the car pulled into a parking space at the curb. "Ella and I were curious about something."

"Hm?" Lucifer said absently. Daniel watched him stare through the windshield at the sign over the wide double doors, all rainbows and smiley faces like a Disney knockoff theme park had thrown up on it. He recognized the name from the list of businesses the victim had owned in partnership with his wife: Sunny Acres Day Camp, LLC. Beneath it, swarms of under-tens crowded and pushed and laughed and shrieked far, far too loud for anything before nine a.m. Daniel watched Lucifer's face turn green as shrill voices drilled through the windows like a glass cutter

Ella twisted around in the front seat. She and Chloe opened their mouths at the same time.

"Why do you hate kids?" they asked in unison.

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"Seriously?" the word popped out of Daniel's mouth before he could stop it.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but 'what he said,'" answered Lucifer, pointing at Dan. Lucifer made a noise in his throat as he looked past Daniel out the passenger side window. An enormous sweatpantsed behind lumbered past, trailed by what seemed like fifty six-year-olds. "Fitting that our murderer would choose to spend her days herding microbe-ridden waifs via a bevy of subordinate harridans."

"You know," said Daniel as, "it's not good to call women names just because you wouldn't want to sleep with them."

Lucifer turned in his seat, brow furrowed. "Where are you getting that I wouldn't—"

"Can you answer the question?" asked Ella. "Does like the innocence and childlike purity of spirit, uh... kryptonite your mojo or something?"

"Purity?" Lucifer pressed both hands to the window like a guard peeking from the walls of a castle under siege. "Miss Lopez, I count fifteen different _kinds_ of communicable illness, and we haven't even gotten out of the car yet."

"Can we focus?" said Chloe, unlocking the car doors.

"Very well. Children, as Miss Lopez might say, just squick me out, Detective." Lucifer gave a snort. "And humanity's collective offspring are rarely _innocent_ , merely unsophisticated." Lucifer nodded out the window at two bigger kids stalking up behind one of smallest boys. One poked him on the right shoulder, and when he turned, the second one pushed him chest-first onto the blacktop. The woman in sweatpants turned, and Daniel could see her smile and call the younger kid "Mr. Clumsypants."

Daniel got out on the driver's side and watched Lucifer open the door for Ella. Instead of smiling at his last-century manners like usual, Ella hesitated before getting out of the car.

"Miss Lopez, I see you like butterflies," Lucifer said, nodding to the multicolored splash of rhinestones on the front of her white tee.

"I guess," she said.

"How fond are you of their larval form?" he asked.

"Well!" her face lit. "There's this one caterpillar, the bagworm moth, that builds these twisty little log cabins out of sticks, almost like a snail with a shell. It—"

"Sorry, I forgot to whom I was speaking," Lucifer interrupted with two hands raised in surrender. "But you can see why most people might find them unpleasant, can't you?" Lucifer continued. "Their nervous systems are so underdeveloped that they only understand 'eat' and 'climb.'" Daniel's eyes trailed to a fenced-in playground. "When they do gather enough wit to defend themselves from predators, it's with the foulest of bodily fluids—" Daniel watched a boy rub a palm on his nostrils and shove it at a girl, who yelled and ran off. "—and if you've ever seen them move, you can feel the mindlessness." A nearby four-year-old was staring into space, blobby-lipped mouth wide open.

Okay, so kids could be gross, Daniel admitted to himself. You weren't really a dad until you'd learned not to hold the baby shirtless. Cleaning Trixie-barf out of his chest hair had not been a fun rite of passage.

"So..." Ella trailed off. "When you look at a kid, are you're wondering why God locked a soul inside a body that doesn't have all of its free will yet, or is it more about how the spark of the divine is—"

Lucifer held up a finger in Ella's direction as his posture went rigid. "Miss Lopez?"

"Yes?"

"Get it off. Get it off. _Get it off!!_ "

Daniel looked down to see a wide-smiling toddler had attached itself to Lucifer's suit leg in a two-armed hug. "Hey, little man," he said. He looked around and waved at the nearest adult—a young black woman wearing the Sunny Acres staff tee, who hurried over with a relieved look in her face, followed by two girls in Disney Princess shirts.

Lucifer pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at a wet spot on his pant leg as the woman pried the toddler away. "Ugh, slime..." he muttered under his breath.

"It's not slime. It's mucus," said one of the girls matter-of-factly.

Lucifer looked up. "Slime is a collection of proteins connected to each other in random directions. Mucus _is_ slime, child."

The girl gaped down at her Princess and the Frog shirt. "Tiana _lied?!_ "

Chloe flashed her badge, "LAPD. Can you tell us where to find Kathy Teagan?"

The staffer stopped midstep. "She has an office down the hall from the main entrance but don't expect her to be in it. Mrs. Teagan likes to be _hands on_."

"Fancy way of saying she wanders in and out of everyone else's business, and part of the job is pretending she's helping?" asked Lucifer.

The girl in the Anna shirt looked up at the staffer. " _Really?_ "

The staffer pinched the bridge of her nose. Chloe grabbed Lucifer by the elbow and dragged him away from the scene in waiting.

"We need to find our victim's wife," she snapped, half-dragging him toward the main entrance. "You can make life difficult for her employees later."

Daniel watched from behind as Lucifer tried to follow Chloe into the building without getting within two feet of any of the inmates. Sure, Lucifer-I-never-lie probably _also_ didn't like that children tended to be gooey and demanding, but Dan knew Lucifer hated kids for the same reason every other petulant playboy hated kids.

Lucifer would probably feel mortality smack him upside the head around age fifty, knock up some dumb twentysomething and pay a private school to pad the kid's grades. The cycle of entitled pretty boys with daddy issues would start all over again.

"So tell me, what is this place?" Lucifer asked as they crossed the threshold.

"The day camp?" asked Ella.

"It smells like bologna and despair."

"It's a place for parents to send their kids while they're at work," said Chloe. "Kids who are too young to be at home alone all day. We used to send Trixie to one in the summer."

"But you realized Mazikeen would be a better influence?" Lucifer eyed the cheap pasteboard ceiling and held out a hand. "So it's like a school, except it's less about learning and more about putting your offspring in storage until you feel like interacting with it." Lucifer held out a hand. "Oh, exactly like school, then."

"What are you—"

"Checking for ashfall." Lucifer rubbed his fingers together. "Are you sure we didn't die and go to Hell when I wasn't looking?"

Daniel rolled his eyes. Ella squeaked.

The building split into two wings in front of them. Children and counselors were filing into different rooms like ants into a burrow, each knowing exactly where to be. "All right," Lucifer rubbed his hands together. "Which way to our little murderer-in-waiting? The horde of mini-gremlins on our left or the ooze-seeping zoonosis reservoir on our right?"

Daniel breathed in. "We'd find her faster if we split up. Ella can go with Lucifer and Chloe and I—"

" _Nolet'ssticktogetherthanks!_ " chirped Ella.

What had been _in_ that coffee?  
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The building had seemed smaller from the outside. They checked the classrooms for the victim's wife one by one, Lucifer ducking and twirling to stay as far away from the kids as possible. Daniel wondered if he'd stick to the ceiling like Spider Man if one of them got close enough.

"Well you know," Chloe said in that not-really-casual tone Daniel recognized from just before dozens of breakfast table arguments. "Medieval paintings show the devil biting the heads off children."

"I assure you, Detective, I would never put one of these creatures in my mouth, and I practically invented the rim job."

"Miss Lewis, what's a rim job?" asked a small voice behind them. The presumed Miss Lewis smacked a hand over her eyes and hurried the child down the hall.

"But why rake me over the coals? Don't must adult humans dislike children?"

"No," said Ella just as Chloe said, "Well, some do."

"The ones who say they hate kids are usually lying," said Ella. "They mean they don't want to _have_ kids. But if you just say 'I don't want to have kids,' people think you mean—"

"That you're trying to wrest one slim fiber of freedom to define your own role in this world before succumbing to my father's programming," Lucifer murmured introspectively.

"That's a funny way to describe evolution," said Daniel as Ella stuck her head in the nearest door.

"Hi? Is Mrs. Teagan in here? No? Okay, bye!" she shut the door behind her as quickly as she could.

"Ella, come on," said Dan. She'd been jumpy all morning.

"No, Espinoza, don't—!"

Dan opened the door just in time for something wet and gooey to hit him full in the face.

"Sorry!" piped a small voice.

Daniel turned around stiffly.

"It's all right, Dan. It looks like paint," said Chloe. Daniel opened his mouth to answer and was blinded by the light.

"Oops," said Lucifer, futzing with his phone. "How do I turn the flash off? It makes you look washed out, Detective Douche."

A kid walked by, tugging on a staffer's sleeve. "Mr. Parker, what's a douche?"

Dan leaned forward and whipped the pocket square out of his Lucifer's jacket.

"Daniel! You're getting lead on my Dior!" he said as he wiped his face.

"This is a kids' facility. There won't be lead in the art supplies," he said, wiping pumpkin orange off his face.

"I beg to differ. That's definitely lead."

"Oh whatever," Dan threw the square toward the nearest trash can.

Behind him, he saw Ella tuck the handkerchief into an evidence bag. Ella and Chloe exchanged a glance.

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"Pardon me, we're looking for Mrs.—"

"BILLY IF YOU DON'T STOP TRYING TO EAT MISSY'S HAIR I SWEAR I WILL TAKE THIS SWINGLINE STAPLER AND—"

Ella quickly closed the door.

"Again, are we sure we're not in Hell? Because the things we do with staplers down there—"

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"What nice singing!" a music teacher's voice floated out into the hallway. "You did a good job, everyone!"

"Your instructor lies, children," Lucifer called to the exiting seven-year-olds.

"We know," answered one kid.

"We're not _deaf_ ," said his friend.

"There may be hope for those two," Lucifer muttered as Chloe pulled him past the door.

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How had they gotten separated in a building this small? They found Lucifer crouched down pointedly not touching a girl with brown puffball pigtails.

"So when Liam calls me a retard and spits in my bookbag, it's _not_ because he likes me like Mrs. Adler says?"

"Absolutely not," answered Lucifer. "It's because he lacks the mental capacity to find a suitable outlet for his boredom and sexual desire."

"I knew it! How do I get him to stop?"

"I see you're wearing closed-toed shoes today. Males of most species have these things called testi— _urrrrk!_ " Chloe hauled Lucifer away by his collar.

"You can't teach kids to solve their problems with violence!" she hissed.

Lucifer looked at her and slowly pointed to the welt on his neck.

"I... uh! You—" Chloe's eyelid twitched.

Behind them, the girl mimed a practice kick.

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"Oh come on, I bet you were just as bad," said Daniel after Lucy gave a particularly theatrical cringe. He pictured Lucifer with a bowl haircut and ears too big for his head. 

"Uh yeah," said Chloe, head lifting as if she'd realized something. "What _were_ you like as a kid?"

"In the beginning?" added Ella. Chloe elbowed her.

"I'll have you know I always looked exactly this dashing," he answered. "But I'm devil enough to admit I was dumber."

Ella looked at Chloe. "Dumber?"

"Dumber," Lucifer nodded to a plastic-covered poster on the wall showing a man in Spanish dress shaking an Iroquois man's hand above the words _Columbus sailed the ocean blue. With his sailors, brave and true!_

"Believed whatever Dear Old Dad said—anyone in authority, really. You humans don't know how lucky you are to have your free will built into the system," Lucifer nodded back toward the classroom, "even if you _do_ have to go through fifteen-odd years of shrieking and oozing before it grows in all the way. I had to invent defiance from scratch." He smiled. "Old Scratch, if you will." He adjusted his collar using his reflection in the plastic. "My fashion sense has also improved, but that's not quite the same thing."

"The dumber part I believe," Daniel pointed out. "But _everyone_ goes through an ugly stage."

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. "When was Trixie's?"

"She didn't—" Daniel felt his eyebrow twitch. How— Did he— _What?!_

"Careful, Daniel, the child's mother is within earshot!" he turned his body toward Chloe. "I know for a fact she solves her problems with violence!" he rubbed his hands together.

"Wow, I guess not _everyone_ has an ugly stage then," Ella piped loudly, pulling Daniel away by the arm.

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Chloe looked through the wire-glass window of the door at the end of the hall. A muffled, vocal sound came from inside. Daniel watched Chloe hold up the DMV photo of Kathy Teagan, look inside, and then nod back at the rest of them.

"She's crying," Ella said softly.

"Doesn't mean she didn't kill him," Daniel and Lucifer said at the same time. Daniel shot Lucy a glare and peered inside. A woman with dark blond hair sat alone in what looked like an employee break room, shoulders moving as she covered her face with one hand.

"Denying the waif-wranglers access to their sole place of respite," murmured Lucifer, "she's hellbound for that alone."

"Really?" Ella said, face going gray.

"All right, everyone," Chloe said as she opened the door.

Mrs. Teagan sat up straight. " _Mariah, I said give me another five—_ Oh!" She swiped at her face with the backs of her wrists, leaving a small smear of brown eye makeup down one side. "Sorry, I thought you were someone else. Detective ...Deckman?"

"Decker," Chloe and Lucifer said at the same time. "And these are my associates, Detective Espinoza and Lucifer Morningstar," continued Chloe. "We ...have a criminalist with us today as well." Ella waved.

"Did you find out anything else about who cut off Martin's head and buried it in the compost heap?"

Lucifer snorted. "Is _that_ how our victim died?"

Chloe shot him a look. Teagan was looking from Lucifer to Chloe and back.

"The truth is, Mrs. Teagan, your husbands' lawyers sent over his financial records and we found a few—" but the woman was already nodding, thick beads at her neck clinking. Daniel sized her up quickly. The woman spoke with an east coast accent. Daniel remembered Pierce correcting Rodney, saying she was from Lodi, New Jersey, not the Lodi in San Joaquin County. 

"Believe me, Detective, I knew all about my Marty. You don't get as rich as he was without getting your hands dirty," she said. In Daniel's opinion, no woman over forty-five should wear leopard print, even just for trim, but years of being Penelope Decker's son-in-law had taught him not to say it out loud. "If you're about to tell me that no my husband wasn't honest as the day is long, don't expect me to have a heart attack about it."

"Well, actually—"

"And if he put something in his will about a little present to some woman or other, or a trust for a little boy who lives in Santa Barbara, I knew all about that too," she waved one hand, and the light gleamed off the giant rock in her engagement ring. "Like I told you the first time we talked, my Marty was still married to his first wife when he met me, so who am I to complain? We had a modern marriage, my Marty and I did. Just like Amelia Earhart and her husband."

Lucifer cracked a smile. "Amy and G."

" _I_ was his real partner. That's what he used to call me," Teagan pulled out a leopard print handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. "So what do I care if he was running around?"

"Yes, but did you know he was running around with the Caribbean accounts?" Lucifer chimed in.

"Huh?" Teagan blinked up through teary eyes and shook her head. "No, no, no. Marty said he wasn't going to bet against our marriage with a regular prenup when he could just put half our money in my name to start with. He made me part owner of almost every new business he started since we got married, not just this one," she gestured at the building around them. "He brought me all the papers himself." She teared up again. "Used to smile this little smile when he did it."

"I'll bet he did," muttered Lucifer. Dan elbowed him.

"Yes, that's true. We found he gave you ten percent ownership of the operations he founded after the two of you moved to California," said Chloe. "But did you know about the clause saying you had an equal share of the liability?" She pulled out a sheaf of paper and flipped to a section marked with a paperclip.

"Owning the debt is part of owning the business," Teagan recited from behind her hanky as she pulled out a pair of reading glasses with her free hand.

"But most of those properties were mortgaged at twenty percent," added Daniel.

Teagan's eyes went off to the right, hanky still quivering in front of her nose.

"So if I owned ten percent of the delivery business... But it was twenty percent in debt..." Teagan's forehead seemed to grow redder where she'd wiped the foundation away. Dan saw her throat work as she swallowed. "And fifty percent of twenty..."

Lucifer flicked a few fingers in a quick count "Sixties, seventies... Oh dear. Were you in school when they were doing those New Math shenanigans? Everyone, we're going to have to give her a minute."

They watched the wheels turn. The hand holding the hanky became a fist. There was a ripping sound.

"So you're telling me Marty ...tricked me?" the voice was small, like the first runners of lava down the side of a volcano.

"You didn't independently own any of the marital property, no," said Chloe. "Now, you could of course have contested this in divorce court—"

"Divorce? You mean Marty played me, like all those other businessmen that he used to say were so stupid?"

Daniel watched Chloe run through her usual spousal interrogation routine, watching Teagan carefully for any sign of surprise or deceit. If this wasn't the first Kathy Teagan had heard about her husband's financial tricks, she was one darn good actress. It was a good set of questions, but...

"Enough of that then. Mrs. Teagan," Lucifer leaned down, elbows on the flimsy faux-wood table, "you must feel like you're being pulled in fifty different directions. Why don't you tell us what your well-preserved little heart really desires, hm?"

"I..." and her eyes took on that half-unfocused vacant tone that Rodney's had earlier that morning.

"I want to outsmart him," she said in that half-unfocused, vacant tone that Lucifer's correspondents always started out with. "I want Marty to walk in here and find out that someone else got the better of him for once, and it was me, the _big dummy!_ " Her eyes refocused and she kept talking in a normal tone, just as if she'd decided to spill her guts on her own. "But he's not going to walk in here, is he?"

"If he'd died instead of divorcing you, then you'd have all his businesses. That would be a pretty hard last laugh."

Teagan swung her head from left to right, beads swinging. "I was at the parents' meeting all night. Didn't leave until ten. You can confirm with Mr. Jacobson and Mrs. Ramirez first. Those two _hate_ me. Don't know why they don't just take their kids somewhere else if they don't like this place." She looked at Chloe. "If what you say about those papers is real," she jabbed the table in front of her with her free hand, "and you can bet I'm getting my own guys to look, but _if_ Marty screwed _me_ over, then—" she took another breath. "Then he wasn't who I thought he was. He might've hurt someone who never did anything bad to him." Something in her face changed.

" _Was_ Marty divorcing me?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

Espinoza cleared his throat, "He was hiding assets, making it look like—"

"We didn't see any records of him consulting a divorce lawyer, no," said Chloe.

"But it isn't unusual for the less scrupulous husbands to see to their assets first and their arses second," chirped Lucifer. "It's no good if your spouse finds out you're _about_ to change the access codes on the Caribbean bank accounts."

"Or maybe he just wasn't divorcing me," said Teagan. She took a shaky breath and got to her feet. "Look, I loved Marty, warts and all," she said. "And I want you to catch the person who killed him. So is there anything else I can do to help you do that?"

Chloe pushed a piece of paper toward her. "The names of everyone at the parents' meeting, and Jacobson's and Ramirez's contact information."

Teagan nodded, slipping a pencil out of a nearby holder.

"One more question," said Chloe.

Teagan looked up.

"At any point in your marriage, did you and your husband plan on having children?"

"That's personal," she said.

"You work here. You spend most of your time around children by choice. If you don't have kids, it's not because just you don't like them."

"No, Detective, it's not," Teagan smiled, a hard kind of smile. She handed over the paper.

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Chloe wouldn't let them talk about the case until they were back in the car and out of earshot of Teagan's employees, but fortunately—or not—Ella was still way too caffeinated.

"You ...never really answered my question," she said.

"What? About children? Miss Lopez, it isn't as if my feelings are unusual. If humans like children so much then why discard them so often?"

Ella looked left and back. "What, like, in a daycare?"

"On hillsides," said Lucifer. "At the Aurelian Gate. By the workhouse door. On the streets of Manhattan. We used to call them street Arabs. You spawn them, you tire of them, and you throw them away."

"Wait, street Arabs? Like, from the 1890s?" asked Chloe.

Dan watched something dawn in Ella's face. "Because they used to die a lot," she said.

"Hm?"

"Before antibiotics," Ella continued. "If a kid under five got sick, the only thing you could do was—" she swallowed "—pray? People couldn't get attached. It'd drive you crazy. Also, there wasn't birth control. It was either don't have sex or have kid after kid."

"Wait _what?_ " asked Lucifer. His mouth dropped open. "Wait, that pill! Is _that_ why the nineteen sixties were such a romp?"

"Why are you two playing along?" Daniel hissed, finally breaking. "He _knows_ all this stuff. Ella, I know you're cool with the method acting thing—" Ella swallowed. "—but Lucy here hates kids for the same reason every other overgrown playboy hates kids," Dan looked Lucifer in the eye. "They're a reminder that _responsibility_ is a real thing," he leaned back, folding his arms, "and you aren't any kind of man without it—"

Lucifer nodded. "'Not any kind of man.' Technically, that's completely t—"

"You're like a child yourself."

"HEY," he said.

"Okay! Into the car, you two!" Chloe gave them both a push.

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"She didn't already know about the money," said Daniel as Chloe eased the car back into the precinct parking structure. Oh but he was _not_ looking forward to leaving the A.C.

"But she did already know about the other women—"

"Other women _and_ a wrong-side-of-the-sheets rugrat," chimed Lucifer. "Those cratered little flotsam bring on all sorts of strange decisions in the adults in their orbit."

"—and maybe she wasn't as open-minded about those things as she claimed," Chloe frowned, her face taking on that look she had whenever she thought aloud.

"You think maybe Kathy Teagan tried to have kids and couldn't? Or maybe her husband told her he didn't want kids? I'd be pretty pissed if I did that for someone and then they changed their minds with some woman in Santa Barbara," said Ella.

Lucifer made a small noise as he got out of the back seat.

Dan trotted up to Chloe as she headed for the elevator. "Look, that was a good interrogation, but why go all the way to Teagan's workplace? Why not call her here where we could have gotten all that on video?" Plus the heat wave meant they could literally sweat her for a confession. "We didn't surprise her in front of her employees. Five'll get you ten someone told her we were looking for her before we actually found her. Sure, it's good to see where the suspect spends her time, but..."

Chloe was already nodding. "No, you have a point," she said. "Next time—"

"Chloe, could I talk to you?" called Ella.

"Uh, sure... See you upstairs, Dan." Chloe walked out of sight around the pylon...

Dan turned back to the elevator just in time to see Lucifer jab the "door closed button." Jerk actually waved. What was he, five? Dan turned around to tell Chloe and Ella they had to wait for the next one, but stopped when he heard them talking.

"I think he just doesn't _know_ ," said Ella.

"He _is_ one of the least self-aware people in L.A.," said Chloe. "But the bit about being ignored by his parents might be a thing."

Dan leaned further into the shadow next to the elevator. Amenadiel had told him a little about his and Lucifer's childhood. The truth was, there might be more to it than a fear of responsibility. They both acted like having Charlotte Richards for a stepmom was a shining bright spot, so _something_ bad must have happened.

"Yeah, good question," said Ella.

"So what's next?" said Chloe. She shook her head. "What am I saying? What's _next_ is we confirm the alibi and find out who else wanted Martin Teagan dead."

"So... we stop?"

"No," said Chloe. "I don't think we can stop. We just don't let this get in the way of the big stuff any more."

Okay, _now_ what was going on?

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Chloe made it back upstairs with her heart pounding. Ella had wanted to log Lucifer's handkerchief as evidence and test it for lead. Chloe wasn't sure if "Are you a metal detector?" was going to make the green side of the board, but it was bringing up all sorts of other memories, doors that had unlocked themselves, statements that had seemed like off-the-cuff jokes but might have been serious as cancer.

_Why do you hate kids?_

It meant one thing coming from absolutely any human being. It was like a woman being allowed to talk about PMS when a man couldn't. Everyone else who had ever told Chloe they didn't like kids used to be one. It had even been on the whiteboard in her head: Larry Morningstar, horribly abused as a child, pretends he never was one so he doesn't have to feel helpless.

She took a breath as the elevator opened up on her floor. It had been a good question in a more important way: It had given Ella time enough to calm down, get invested. Whether you were catching a murderer or finding out what the hell was up with the devil, it was better to work with a partner than alone. Chloe did not want to do this alone.

She headed toward the conference room. Sure enough, Rodney was still poking up like a prairie dog from between piles of documentation from Teagan's businesses. Through the blinds, she could just see the edge of Lucifer's arm where he was seated down in front of the boy.

"...and that's why I can't date Mindy from work," he was saying.

She saw Lucifer's shadow move as he shook his head. "No, no, no, you've got it all backwards, Rodney," he said. "It's not 'she has a child.' It's 'she _already_ has a child." There was a pause, and Chloe's feet felt cemented to the floor. "She's not going to think of motherhood as some grand, romantic adventure that every female in Creation gets to go on except her, and she won't mind if _you _weren't built to spawn, dump you, and go back to her husband."__

__"Uh... Mindy's not ...married? And women don't like it when you call them 'females.' Uh, do they?"_ _

__Chloe's mouth went dry._ _

__"Well there weren't other women around back then, were there?" Lucifer snorted._ _

__Quietly, Chloe turned around. The space between her and the soft room storage closet seemed to disappear. Picking up the red marker, she wrote on the whiteboard:_ _

___Eve?!__ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd hoped to get the entire first small stuff done but a global viral pandemic that would have been under control by now isn't exactly conducive to creativity. As you've probably figured out, each chapter will involve Chloe and Ella asking Lucifer one question. I have a few that I'm definitely going to do but I am ALSO TAKING REQUESTS. If you can think of something stupid to throw out there, by all means, throw it into a comment. Think of it like a prompt.


	3. First Timers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a thank you to marisandini for supplying the question for this chapter. I've decided to make this my NaNo project for this year so keep 'em coming! I am gladly taking all suggestions on small stuff Ella and Chloe could ask Lucifer about.

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A green word flashed into being next to "HATES KIDS."

"'Squick'?" said Chloe.

"It's when you more than don't like something but 'trigger' is too strong and you can still kind of see how other people might think it was good."

Chloe frowned, "He called them vermin."

"He called them gremlins. And 'squick' is the word he used," said Ella, holding up both hands. She breathed out. "So what's next?" her eyes turned back to the whiteboard that still had "HELL," "DEALS FOR SOULS," "CHARLOTTE IS STEPMOM?" and "GOD" all outlined in red on the right under "BIG STUFF."

Ella was feeling better about this, Chloe noted. And Chloe felt...

It couldn't possibly have been less than three hours since she'd seen Lucifer's wings. She felt like she was on the other side of an ocean.

"Hey," said Ella, breaking Chloe's train of thought. "Did you write something here and then rub it out?" she pointed at the left column where Chloe had erased the completely _insane_ idea she'd had after overhearing Lucifer talking to Intern Rodney.

"No!" Chloe answered quickly. "I mean ...no more using the case to get him to open up," she said. "Dan was right. It was just dumb luck we didn't mess up a confession by not following procedure." 

"Speaking of confessions..." Ella turned her head in a grimace, "if he really can draw out people's hidden desires, is it unethical for us to use him on people? It was one thing when we thought it was just some neat _thing_ he could do, but actual soul-reading angel magic?"

Chloe reached past Ella and scrawled a few letters in green, "I think that's more of a question for us than for him. 'Is this ethical' isn't really Lucifer's shtick even if he weren't also..." Chloe trailed off.

"Yeah," said Ella. "He's more the type to wonder about whether he can..." Ella straightened.

"If we're not using the _case_ to get him to talk," Ella turned around just as Chloe was nodding. Ella wrote a new question on the whiteboard. "What do you want to know about the one thing Lucifer never shuts up about?"

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"Nice work, but wouldn't it have been better to bring the suspect here?" Pierce was asking, holding Daniel's preliminary report of the morning's work in his hand.

"Chloe said something about wanting to catch her in front of her employees. Didn't work out."

"Where _is_ Chloe, anyway?"

The elevator dinged and Lucifer walked in, straightening the already razor-perfect line of his collar.

"Is that a different suit?" asked Daniel.

"Doesn't your drycleaner have a Walk of Shame delivery service, Daniel?" Lucifer lifted his phone from side to side. "I hardly see why I should remain in disarray _and_ covered in goo when the only people I slept with last night were the two of you and young Rodney."

A uniform walking by stopped mid-stride. Then he tipped his head to the side, muttered "Eh," and kept going. Pierce pinched the bridge of his nose.

The elevator dinged again, and Chloe walked out, Ella in tow.

"Detective!" Lucifer said as Pierce gave a nod. Espinoza watched both men. Lucifer was stupid in love with Chloe and probably the only person in a fifty-foot blast radius who didn't know it, but that was nothing new. Pierce... Pierce had softened toward Chloe since coming back from the hospital. They'd even gone to some concert together. Dan was starting to wonder if he really was in the loopy position of having his ex hook up with a certifiably insane amateur hypnotist who told people he was the devil _or_ start dating his boss. Two different flavors of workplace hell.

Ella still looked pretty nervous. Sure, Pierce had been a hardass when he'd first arrived, but when was she going to stop being afraid of him?

"Thanks for joining us, Decker," said Pierce. "Lopez. Espinoza was just bringing me up to speed."

Chloe pushed her hair behind her ears. Dan saw Lucifer quirk an eyebrow and Pierce's lip flicker in a smile. Oh great. "Yes, LT. I think our next move is to confirm a few alibis. The victim's wife says she was at a PTA meeting, and she mentioned a few people who might have had issues with her school."

"With a daycare?" Pierce frowned.

"Yes, Lieutenant!" Intern Rodney ran in, huffing and puffing with a huge cardboard box full of papers. "Turns out they were being sued!" He set the box down on a desk, one palm down as he wheezed. "Or they thought they were going to be. Martin Teagan put a new lawyer on retainer—" he gulped air. "Specialized in civil lawsuits, not contracts and acquisitions like most of the ones he already had. They're still sending over more boxes. You'd think _we_ were opposing council the way they're trying to bury us in dead trees." He flipped around so that his shoulders were against the box, chest and belly heaving. "You know, this Teagan guy was involved in so many little companies that didn't look like they had anything to do with each other. It could have been any of them." 

"Who's the plaintiff?" Chloe asked, stepping closer to Rodney.

He shook his head. "Don't know yet. I've got to—" he waved at the papers.

"We need to talk to this lawyer. Get on it," said Pierce.

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Lucifer was in the conference room, ostensibly helping Rodney sort through the legal files, but every minute or so, he'd put a hand on the boy's shoulder and move as if explaining something, and Rodney would nod.

"Ready?" asked Chloe.

"Sure thing," said Ella. "Go on and ask him."

"I can't ask him this one!" said Chloe.

"Oh, right. Because of your whole..." Ella frowned. "But aren't you and Pierce a thing now?"

Chloe stopped. "Uh... Wow." Going to the Axara concert with Pierce had been fun in a hey-is-this-happening kind of way, but had she _forgotten_ about it? "Look, Ella, you're probably the only person who can say this to Lucifer without him thinking it's a come-on."

"You're right." Ella's brow furrowed. "Hey why _is_ that?"

Chloe opened her mouth to answer just as Ella held up her hand and said, "Go it—Not this time. Green column, by the way."

"Right." Chloe pushed the door open just in time to see Lucifer smack a pad and pencil out of Rodney's hands.

"No! Bad Devil's pupil!"

"But it helps me remember," Rodney said as Ella walked in the door.

"And that's all well and good in Contracts class, but you can't start taking notes when you're on a date. Practice _listening_ to the lady and remembering what she says."

Rodney nodded vigorously. "Okay."

Lucifer narrowed his eyes. "You're taking notes in your head now, aren't you?"

"How is _that_ not all right?"

"Lucifer," Chloe interrupted. "Ready to head to interrogation?"

"Of course, Detective," he said, still shaking his head at Rodney.

Chloe nudged Ella in the ribs.

"So, uh, Lucifer. I'm starting a... a kind of a ...a sociology blog!"

"Really?" Lucifer turned his head and pointed to Rodney. "You. Listening. Practice." Then he leaned forward. "I've recently entered the blog-o-sphere myself. And you've reminded me," he whipped out his phone and clicked through to a photo of Daniel covered in orange paint. "Should I title this one 'Where pumpkin spice really comes from' or 'always bring face wipes to a Charlie Brown orgy'?"

Chloe took the phone out of his hand. "'Douchealicious.com'?"

"Daniel draws in far more followers than I expected. A mystery in itself." He put the phone back in his pocket. "So!" he pressed his hands together. "How can I assist you with this project of yours, Miss Lopez?"

"I am interviewing people about..." she slowly nodded, head like a boat bobbing on the water "...what their first relationships were like. I thought I might call it ...My First ...Relation Shutup."

"I'd be delighted to help out, Miss Lopez."

"Okay," chirped Chloe. "Then—"

"I'm sure we can come up with a better name in no time. Cherrypoppers.org is taken, I'm afraid, but there are several others that might suit."

"Uh," said Chloe.

"No, I mean I want to interview you for the blog."

"Oh!" Lucifer's eyebrows went up and his mouth flashed in a delighted smile. "Come right to the source, have you? I generally have more fun when my partner’s got a bit of experience, but I have been part of many people's firsts over the years. First bondage, first group experience, first time incorporating a remote-controlled garage door opener..."

Chloe breathed in. "Actually, Lucifer, I think Ella was asking about _your_ —"

Daniel ducked in the door behind them. "Jacobson and his lawyer just showed up. Pierce has them waiting in interrogation room three."

"Shall we, then, Detective? Oh!" Lucifer scooped Rodney's notebook off the floor and handed it to Ella. "Here, Miss Lopez. I think you'll need this."

.  
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"Not to belittle humanity's creativity when it comes to fun things to do to their naughty bits, but I may have had my hand in a few inventions." He straightened. "After Volta and Cruickshank started their little electricity escapades, I made sure the D battery earned its name, let me tell you."

"Or you could stop telling me," Ella offered.

Pierce turned around as they walked up to Interrogation. "Lopez, don't you have tests to run?"

"Yes!" Ella smiled over Rodney's notepad. "I have to test the ...evidence I collected at the school. Right. Well _bye then_ ," she said pointedly.

"But the industrial revolution was the good part—recorded music meant the guitarist didn't have to watch!"

Dan shook his head. Ella should know better than to get Lucifer started on his sex life.

"And they both agreed to talk without counsel?" asked Pierce.

"Jacobson brought a lawyer but Ramirez didn't," said Daniel. "I told them it was about Mrs. Teagan's husband's death and they both volunteered to give statements."

Dan followed Pierce into the observation room and settled in to watch Chloe work. With the walking stack of neuroses that somehow managed to cram himself into an overpriced suit.

"My client is agreeing to speak, solely to confirm Mrs. Teagan's alibi," said the orange-haired man in the dark blue suit. It was even darker around the collar where he was sweating his Evian out into the airless interrogation room. "She was indeed at the parents' meeting Wednesday evening—as was Mr. Jacobson. I do not represent Ms. Ramirez, but—"

"But if I could pay five hundred an hour to have someone tell you that we were all at the meeting and none of us killed that psycho Mr. Teagan, then I wouldn't be sending my kid to stupid Sunny Acres," said a short woman who looked far less uncomfortable in a sleeveless sundress.

On the other side of the lawyer, Robertson nodded. "Whatever else I can say about that big B-word, if her husband died between six thirty and nine, she didn't kill him."

Lucifer turned his head to the side. "'B-word'?" he asked. "You do know this police precinct isn't censored."

"Between us, we have four kids under the age of five who repeat everything they hear like one of those Furby toys," said Mrs. Ramirez. Jacobson nodded. "Kathy Teagan's a B-word. Her husband was the other B-word. That daycare is an H-hole. They both can bite my A."

"If it was such an H-hole," Chloe flipped a page in the records in front of her, "then why did you have both your children attending for the past two summers," her eyes flicked down, "and during the school year before your oldest turned six?"

Jacobson shrugged to the side with "All his friends go there" as Ramirez said at the same time "It's what I can afford what with it being in the neighborhood so I'm not late for work."

"And—" Jacobson cut off just as Ramirez said, "And..." The two of them looked at each other.

"And I'm divorced and my ex has primary," said Jacobson. "I told Becky that place was no good, but if I could get that woman to listen to me, we'd still be married."

"And we didn't want to take our kids _out_ ," said Ramirez," we just wanted that C to get off her A and clean up the place!"

"Yeah!" said Jacobson.

Dan frowned in unison with Chloe. The place hadn't looked dirty, but "clean" could mean a lot of things.

He missed whatever Chloe said next. The words didn't matter much anyway. Hell but it was fun to watch her work—he'd taught her some of these tricks. Who needed neurolinguistic programming when you'd practiced how to get your face, posture and tone to line up like an M.C. Escher illusion and convince the other person they were just _expected_ to keep talking. More cops should be ex-B-movie actors.

"The chemicals! The toxins! The what do you call them!"

"Thetans?" Lucifer asked with a raised eyebrow.

Jacobson was scowling, but not at Chloe. "I've got an IQ of 161, and I can't say Becky isn't one smart cookie. She had a top accounting degree. Why, you needed a PhD just to update the spreadsheet of _all_ the guys she banged in _the house I'm still paying for—_ "

"Matthew, focus!" said the orange-haired man. "I will not have a rerun of what happened in front of Judge Hernandez!"

"Right." Jacobson took a deep breath, then looked back at Chloe. "Tell me why Becky's and my oldest kid is only reading at a second-grade level. My ex thinks he's just a visual learner, but if you saw any of the drawings on _my_ fridge, you'd know that's a load of C."

Ramirez patted his arm, "He's _nice_ your Timothy, though. Better a nice boy who's a little behind than one of those F-ing D-heads down the block from me."

"Thank you," Jacobson touched his eyes.

Lucifer leaned over Chloe's shoulder to peek at the file. "Tenth grade?! He's eight grades below average?"

"He's ten _years old_ , Lucifer. He's two grades below average." Chloe looked at Jacobson.

"Oh," said Lucifer, "Why that's not that bad for L.A.! He could grow up to be a garbage collector, shop clerk, mayor of Fresno..."

"Well maybe they do second grade different in England," said Jacobson.

"'Differently,'" said Lucifer.

Jacobson glared. "That building is full of whatever chemical it is that makes your kid stupid!" said Jacobson.

"Or get into trouble!" said Ramirez. "My kids never got into trouble before that place."

Jacobson's brow furrowed, "Asbestos!"

"Asbestos messes up your lungs. It doesn't unhook you on Phonics," said Lucifer.

"Do your children have asthma or breathing problems?" asked Chloe.

Jacobson looked around unhappily as Ramirez said. "So he got the chemical wrong. It was that stuff MSG."

"MSG is basically salt. It doesn't make you stupid."

"Phenylalanine in the food!"

"That does affect brain development but only in people with a rare enzyme problem," said Chloe.

Dan leaned toward Pierce. "We had Trixie tested."

"What they use to put you out in the dentist's office?" said Ramirez.

"Nitrous. _Does_ make you stupid, but the effects wear off." Lucifer leaned toward Chloe, "I almost decided on a soul patch."

"Bricks."

"Only if they're applied externally," Lucifer pointed to his head.

"Then it was that stuff in the water bottles they give the kids."

"Bisphenol-A and phthalates make women get cancer and men grow breasts." He inclined his head at Chloe. "Yet another way Dad showed favoritism to the less-fair sex." He turned back to Jacobson. "So unless Little Timmy's being fitted for his first A-cup, I think the Teagans might be off the hook."

"Look, we don't know what it is in that building that made our kids sick, but it's something," said Ramirez, stretching her forearms across the table. "We tried hiring a private detective to go in and collect samples or something, but it was going to cost like ten thousand dollars."

"The B-head even asked me did I want pictures of my wife having sex with her boyfriends," said Jacobson. "Like I need those _after_ the divorce!"

"I know several couples who stayed together through a well-managed cuckolding fetish yes," said Lucifer, "but don't you think you might be ...I don't know..."

"Focusing on small things, when there's really a much bigger matter in play," Chloe said faintly.

"That's right," said Lucifer. "You're trying to find an excuse to avoid talking about your own lousy parenting."

Ramirez's eyes flared. "How dare you—" "Just because I'm not a stay-at-home-dad—" chimed Jacobson. "—husband and I each work two jobs to give our kids a nice life—" "—see _you_ manage with that much alimony."

"And with that," the orange-haired lawyer stood up, mirrored by Jacobson and Ramirez, "I believe my client and his friend have helped your investigation enough for one day—by establishing Mrs. Teagan's alibi."

Ramirez took a breath, smoothing her shirt, "I hope you find whoever killed that man," said Ramirez. "I didn't like Mrs. Teagan but I didn't want her husband to die."

Chloe looked to the left. Dan cracked a grin. "You said you two looked into hiring a private investigator because you suspected there were harmful chemicals in the building. Did you do anything else?"

Ramirez frowned. "Like what?"

"Like file a complaint with the Department of Public Health."

Ramirez and Jacobson looked at each other. Then at the orange-haired man. He stared at Jacobson. "I caught that thing Becky tried to do with your joint investment account _and_ kept you from punching the court stenographer. I can't think of everything!" His breath left him in a huff. "So anyway..."

"Yes, and thank you," said Chloe. "We'll call if we have more questions."

Espinoza watched Chloe's shoulders move as Jacobson and Ramirez walked out. The Breath. Dan cracked a smile. That meant the wheels were turning. Half a minute later, she turned around and looked at the camera.

" _They_ couldn't pay for a private investigator."

Dan reached for the mike, "So we'll see if any other parents did" right there in his mouth, but Pierce got there first. 

"Nice work, Decker. Espinoza, get the list of who else had complaints against the school."

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Follow-up took more time than usual with half the precinct still gone. Dan stopped at his desk long enough to make a call to the health department about complaints against the school.

Back in the conference room, Chloe was updating the whiteboard. Daniel headed over to help while he waited for the guys from the health department to call back. Ella must have set up whatever lab tests she was running because she was back at her ...sociology experiment?

"So this one time in Tikal," Lucifer was saying. "They'd just domesticated dragonfruit, and those early landraces had a tang to them that you just don't get these days, especially when applied to bare skin. Well, bare skin on certain parts of the body..."

Still staring hard at the whiteboard, Dan winced in time with the sound from Ella's throat.

"Uh, like I said, Lucifer, my project is more about people's first time with—"

"Oh, let's get to _Pompei!_ Vesuvius was not their biggest explosion, let me tell you."

"Or you could stop telling me."

"No no no. Ancient Rome had a few technological innovations involving piped water. Now it wasn't under pressure yet, but you could still get a good—"

"Okay," Chloe started to look at the door. "I'm going to check on—"

Ella grabbed her by the sleeve, "Decker, we _both_ stuffed these quarters into his jukebox. Don't you dare leave me listening to 'What's New, Pussycat?' all by myself!"

Chloe cringed. Dan ducked his chin into his neck and hoped to go deaf. Ella closed her eyes and held up a hand. "I heard it as it was coming out of my mouth," she said just as Lucifer called across the room:

"Speaking of! Did you know old Andy Lloyd's stage musical was inspired by the West End fetish scene?"

Ella made a noise.

"I'm never going to be able to listen to 'Jellicle Ball' again."

"How much did you listen to it to start?" asked Dan.

"I was more worried he'd go with the quarters," said Chloe.

"Yeah, that's the best we could have hoped for," Ella nodded, sat down next to Lucifer, and dropped her chin into her palm. "You were saying?"

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Dan managed to tune most of it out most of Rome, Sumeria and a group of particularly nasty folks from the Amazon, but his there were only so many times you could rewrite the word "suspect" and wonder where Intern Rodney was. But it wasn't as if there was nothing else on his mind.

He was going to have to talk to Pierce. Maybe not that day, but there was a talk coming. There was a code to it, sniffing around after another cop's ex, especially when they had a kid together. Lucifer couldn't be expected to follow or even know about it, but Pierce could. Spending time around Chloe meant spending time around Trixie.

"Now our modern concepts of straight and gay didn't hold back in the Hellenistic age, but there is a certain satisfaction in taking a man who thinks he only has a shield arm and making a spear handler out of him. But if you ask me, Miss Lopez—"

"I kind of didn't."

"—humanity invents the best new moves when they think it's all about to end. There's a reason the Seventh-Day Adventists don't talk about those first six days in front of other Bible-thumpers. Things get especially creative during wartime."

Daniel looked up at movement and saw Pierce walking toward the conference room door, Rodney trailing behind with a box full of tax returns. As much as the lieutenant could be a killjoy, Lucifer needed reining in and for once Chloe wasn't doing it.

Pierce opened the door just in time for Lucifer to say, "So a number of high ranking courtesans in Issus threw this insane blowout right before Alexander's army arrived."

Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw Pierce stop short. "Alexander's Army?" Rodney asked him, "is that the metal band from the eighties?"

"...city bigwigs, officers from Darius' military. I think the lady in and out of the blue dress might have been the emperor's sister Statira—" What was Pierce so upset about? "—but I couldn't swear to it," Lucifer went on. "Ordinarily I remember everyone I have sex with, but they were smoking things I _never_ managed to identify. Probably harvested to extinction, like the poor sylphium weed. Even knocked _me_ for a loop. Whole things's still a bit in the fuzz. Party Central had a stunning view of the—"

Pierce frowned and his mouth made something that might have been—

"—Amanian gate," finished Lucifer. "Now I think this fellow was one of the woman's bodyguards. I can't remember much about what he looked like except he was quite respectably jacked for the period, had bright blue eyes, and had _clearly_ only been with women before," Lucifer touched his right arm, frowning for a second, "though he certainly knew what a sarissa spear was by the time I was through with him. Good job too, because the entire Persian army got quite horrifically trounced a few days later."

The lieutenant's shoulders stayed pointed straight ahead and then, moving only his gaze, right at Lucifer. His eyes got as big as robin's eggs. Then he turned and walked out of the room.

"Lucifer, uh, not that that isn't interesting," said Ella, "but I more wanted to talk about the first time _you_ had an experience. But don't tell me if you don't want to!"

Dan tensed up. He could feel Chloe do the same. Amenadiel hadn't told him much about how he and Lucifer had grown up, and Charlotte hadn't brought up her marriage to their dad, but his money was in "crazy religious cult." Blew-a-stranger-in-a-truck-stop-bathroom twenty miles from the compound was at the _good_ end of possible first sexual experiences. Ella really should know better.

"Oh..." Lucifer trailed off. As if he hadn't completely understood Ella's explanation the first time just to spend the morning yanking her chain.

"Well, ah..." Lucifer stepped forward carefully. "For a very long time, I suppose you could say... I thought of sex as something that only beasts did. There were creatures with spirits, and there were things like plants and animals, and I didn't truly have a concept of anything in between."

Espinoza checked off another box. Cuuuult.

"But humans are in between," said Ella. "That's kind of the point."

Lucifer stared ahead gave a smile. "I think I might have to pass on your project, Miss Lopez. I... don't think the details of my first time are suitable for consumption by the general public."

Dan looked up at the faint sound of a ringtone coming from the nearly empty bullpen. He patted his pockets and looked at Chloe, who nodded. Dan headed out the door toward his desk where he'd left his cell phone after calling the health department. He stopped, leaning his head to the left. Pierce was in his office, barely visible through the glass, breathing in and out of a paper bag. Dan shrugged. Trying to run a department in a heat wave with half the people gone could get to anyone.

"Espinoza," Dan said just in time for the caller to go to voicemail. Dammit. He stepped back into the conference room. "Two more complaints, both anonymous, both in the last three months," said Daniel. "The guys at Public Health don't know who sent them and haven't had a chance to investigate."

"So there might actually be nothing wrong at the school?" asked Ella.

"Maybe," said Chloe.

"Or maybe Jacobson and Ramirez aren't the only parents who think the fact their kid isn't in Mensa has to be someone else's fault," said Daniel. He looked at Chloe. "Remember when Trixie was in second grade and what's-her-name—"

"Oh no. Carol Evans," said Chloe. She looked at Ella and Lucifer's blank stares. "Turned every back-to-school-night, every parent-teacher meeting into a nightmare. Her daughter had to be in the advanced classes, her daughter had to be on all the sports teams. According to her, the placement tests were rigged and the coaches played favorites."

"And she was contagious," said Dan. "The minute Evans got going, five other people cropped up with the same complaint."

"So there could be any number of other parents who didn't think Mrs. Teagan had their rugrats' best interests at heart."

"Let's not lose sight of this," said Chloe. "The victim was found decapitated, with his head hidden on the grounds of his home. We never found the murder weapon, but Ella said the cuts were made—"

"Around the time of death," she finished. "I felt pretty confident saying they were the cause of death given the dilation , but we can't rule out someone killing him and then cutting his head off."

"I've seen some angry parents, but I'm not sure anyone would have the upper body strength to pull that off. But if the murder weapon was heavy enough, who knows?"

"And why put his head in the compost heap? Trying to grow some nice shitake mushrooms out of the felony?" asked Lucifer.

Dan watched Chloe's brow crease. "Maybe it wasn't about the compost heap. Maybe it was about getting the head out of sight..." she trailed off. "With the amount of blood we found at the scene..." Dan sat back as Chloe relived their visit to the crime scene at the victim's home.

At the conference table, Lucifer's chin had dropped into his palm as he watched Chloe work. Dan exchanged a get-a-load-of-that-guy look with Ella, but she was frowning, watching him as if she hadn't seen him before.

"I have a feeling this was someone who knew Martin Teagan. Someone who didn't want to look him in the eye after he was dead."

"And someone who didn't mind tossing him out with the trash." Lucifer shot a grin. "Still think it couldn't be the wife?"

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, polite concrit is welcome.


	4. Partners in Crime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella puts her foot down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who suggested questions. I'm still taking both suggestions and discourse on the chapter content. Do bear with the speculative bits. Hilarity ensues later.

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Ella wrote the answer on the whiteboard.

"'Private,'" she said. "I can't blame him."

"Yeah..." said Chloe. "He was definitely willing to talk about the rest of his sex life, though."

Too eager. Lucifer never had been one to keep quiet about his adventures in the bedroom. Or the temple of Huitzilopochtli. Or Tesla's workshop. Or backstage at Woodstock. Chloe felt a sudden ache in her jaw.

She blinked out of the reverie to notice Ella watching her. "Decker, are you grinding your teeth?"

"No!" Chloe answered quickly. "But I think we need to check in. Every time we sneak down here to update the board, we cap it at five minutes—"

"—and make sure it's not interfering with the case," Ella nodded. "Got it. Just because we're investigating a supernatural being that inadvertently revealed itself to us and whose arrival may have heralded the end times doesn't mean I want to get fired." Ella closed her eyes, "The victim's samples got sent to toxicology on time. The rest of the assays take time to run... I think we're good for the next forty minutes."

"And I think the questioning went pretty normal," Chloe nodded to herself. "Speaking of questions..." she gestured at the board.

"Yeah, I've been thinking," said Ella. "If we're doing this scientifically, we need a control group."

Chloe turned toward her. "You mean another guy who thinks he's the Devil?"

Ella shook her head. "I mean... The goal here is to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone, right?"

Chloe folded her arms and stared at the whiteboard. What _did_ she want out of all of this? "Yeah," she said. "We're going to investigate, and make sure he's not hurting anyone."

"Like, by _being_ here," said Ella. "I mean, L.A. was a weird place already, right?" She let out a long breath. "So what we really need to find out is how much of the stuff we've heard about the devil is true. We find someone else who had all this stuff said about them, and by the same people." She breathed out. "Mary Magdalene."

"Uh..." Chloe looked to the side. "My mom made me try out for _Jesus Christ: Superstar_ when I was sixteen, but that's all I got."

"Decker! I didn't know you could sing."

Chloe winced. "I can't."

"Oh. Oh!" said Ella. "Anyway. So Jesus had this follower Mary of Magdala, and we're not a hundred percent who she was. The actual Bible says she a woman who fed Jesus and his friends whenever they passed through town. A patron, probably a rich widow. Might have been a lot older than they were. Bible also says Jesus 'cured her of seven demons,' which back then just meant she was really sick with something and he did the whole traveling healer bit."

"Okay..." Chloe said, though not sure if she was willing to add Jesus to her list of things to do. What happened to starting small?

"So what it says in the scriptures about her is that she's the first one to see Jesus after he's resurrected. That's super important. Big saint stuff. There are even a couple gospels that she's supposed to have written. Didn't make the cut five hundred years later when they were putting the Bible together, though."

"Uh..." Chloe trailed off.

"But then you get the medieval church, right?" Ella went on, fingers fanning into the air. "And like half the women in that part of Judea were named either Mary or Salome, so Mary Magdalene's story gets mixed up like three other Marys, and people start thinking Mary Magdalene was this prostitute that Jesus and pals helped get out of the business. And the story of _even_ a hooker can repent her sins and be the Messiah's best friend and this super-important saint was really bitchin' propaganda. Jesus _did_ have followers who were ex-working girls. They just weren't the same person as the one who saw him after the Crucifixion and maybe wrote a bunch of holy texts."

"All right," Chloe nodded. "So what you're saying is that this big _idea_ that people have about this important religious figure—"

" _Superstar_ version of Mary Magdalene," offered Ella.

"—is completely wrong?" Chloe nodded. "Because the church in the Dark Ages wanted to tell a story." The squiggles on Chloe's mental whiteboard started to even out. The story of a Devil who wanted to trick you into making a deal for your soul. The story of a Devil who would always lie. The _lesson_ of Mary Magdalene was don't-worry-even-sinners-can-join-our-religionclub. The one with the Devil was probably don't-make-stupid-deals. And it didn't matter if the villain in the story wasn't like that in real life. Chloe began to nod to herself. As a teenager, she'd read _The Three Musketeers_ , where Cardinal Richelieu was the bad guy, but her old college European History class had said he was just a regular politician. People told stories about a rich French queen who said "Let them eat cake," but the real-life Marie Antoinette never said it.

Chloe took a deep breath. "So we forget all that middle ages stuff, just go with ancient history and maybe some of your Sister Judith Bible lessons."

"Well..." Ella gave a half-cringing smile. "Here's the problem. You know the whole thing about there being a war in heaven and Lucifer getting thrown out of Heaven to rule Hell? The one that the Lucifer currently bossing around Intern Rodney _definitely_ says happened?"

"Yes?" Chloe answered carefully.

" _That's_ medieval tradition."

"Wait, what?"

"The Bible only gives it like two lines in Revelations and a couple in Isaiah," Ella said. "Most of the details, like what the hell they were fighting _about_ , came later."

"It's this whole huge religious thing, and it's _not_ in the Bible?"

"Nope. Bible only mentions the Devil a couple times, really. And strictly speaking it's not a huge _religious_ thing, exactly. Like I said, tradition."

"Okay," Chloe breathed out. All _that_ was going to have to sit with her for a bit. "So we still need a new question," she said. She looked at her watch. "In twelve seconds."

Ella leaned back on her heels. Chloe watched her lower lip move. There _was_ something Ella wanted to know, and it wasn't any inconsequential story about his first sexual experience. But if she was moving away from the small stuff, Chloe had to let her do it at her own pace. She watched Ella shake her head. "Well there is something I've been curious about." Her eyes narrowed, "But from now on, we are taking _turns_ , and you have to go next."

.  
.  
.

Ella and Chloe were up to something. They were ducking back into work and then sneaking off—always together, and never for very long.

"So Lucifer," asked Chloe, "can I ask you something?" Dan didn't look up from where he was scanning legal documents.

"As long as it's doesn't involve compensated demand curves," Lucifer said, putting the sheaf of papers back on Rodney's to-do pile. "Which have nothing to do with strip clubs, I was disappointed to learn."

"Why do you have a British accent? Amenadiel doesn't."

_Because they grew up in a cult, Chloe,_ Dan thought to himself. They were in a cult, and Lucifer went bonkers, and the fake accent was the least of it. Or maybe they'd been adopted after they'd turned twelve and sounded like their birth parents. Either way: cult.

"Just how things worked out, Detective. Dad made me to speak every tongue with power and authority. In English I sound like I'm from London. In Japanese, I sound like I’m from Kyoto." He said something that ended in _deshita_ and a definite question.

"Do I want to know what that meant?"

He cracked a smirk. "As for my brother, I can only infer he learned English from the parade of goody-two-shoes new arrivals to the Silver City, though I regret they did not impart a sense of humor. Or fashion sense. Though it probably would have taken an act of God to accomplish that. In two hundred years, when I'm speaking Martian, I'll probably sound like I'm from wherever they set up the capital." He smiled. "Tell President Urchin I recommend Olympus Mons."

"Why?" Chloe asked. "What's at Olympus Mons?"

"It's only my second favorite mons," leered Lucifer.

Dan rolled his eyes.  
.  
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.

"Lucifer, I was wondering..." Ella trailed off. "Why a nightclub?"

Lucifer leaned back. " _So_ many reasons, Miss Lopez. For Catholics and Methodists, music was considered the soul's purest form of expression, so the fun is in expressing myself better than they do. But during all the stiffest and dullest parts of Western civilization, music was considered sinful. Can't have little Johnny off playing the panpipes when he's meant to be watching the sheep. So I play music, and all the preachers and pundits look right past their own depravities to tell me I ought to stop. There's something so delightfully hypocritical in being called a fiddling wastrel by a man who just embezzled the fix-our-roof fund."

"Fiddle?" Dan asked, turning around. "Like in 'Devil Went Down to Georgia'?"

"Piano's more expressive, but violin's been around longer. A bit less dignified as well. Hard to look suave when you're whipping your instrument back and forth." He smiled. "There is such a thing as artistic restraint."

.  
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.

"So Lucifer," Chloe said a bit stiffly. "What was the whole deal with the Book of Joel?"

"Job!" Ella whispered.

"Job," Chloe nodded.

"Wouldn't know. I wasn't involved," he said.

"Wait!" Ella butted in. "It's the only time the Bible spends more than two lines in a row on you, and you weren't involved?" Ella butted in.

"Nope. It's what you'd call exploratory fiction. Miss Lopez, the Heinlein and Bradbury of its day." He set down the papers. "If I told you a story in which Joe the Plumber asks why he's out of work, and a man named Ronnie Republican tells him to pull himself up by his own bootstraps, Debby Democrat says the government's failed him, and Libby Libertarian says she doesn’t care how he gets a job so long as she doesn't have to pay for it? Oh, and it's all set to country music complete with a twangy bridge after verse three?"

"I'd think it was a song about American politics."

"Right. That's what's going on in that book, and it would have been obvious to the people reading it when it first came out. Back then, people believed that bad things, like Job's cattle and offspring dying, only happened if you committed a sin. Bad things happened to bad people, and good things happened to good people. "

"That's nuts," said Ella.

"So was Reaganomics," shrugged Lucifer. "Anyway, the three wise guys who preach at our poor itchy Job _represent_ three different ways people defended that idea. The point of the book is that Job loses his property, his spawn and his health even though he's the most saccharine goody-two-shoes to walk the land of Uz. Because his friends are convinced that this is proof he wasn't Mr. Perfect after all, he also has to put up with schadenfreude you could cut with a plowshare." Lucifer gave a snort. "Can you imagine trying to live next to an actual Job? He makes Ned Flanders look like Billy Idol. I almost don't blame his idiot friends for gloating."

"You sound like you've read it a couple times," mused Ella.

"Well for one thing, half the book is written as poetry, and in the original it's not half bad. It's alsoone of the few flattering portrayals of yours truly, what with fictional me inspiring even Dad to question his prejudices. I pull it out every time _Little Nicky_ re-airs on TV," he shook his head, eyes going dark. " _Rodney Dangerfield_ of all people? At least _Devil's Advocate_ cast Pacino."

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.

"So Lucifer... What's Maze's deal?" asked Ella. "You guys have been together for a long time. Is she your ex or just your ex employee?"

Lucifer sat back in his trail, a look of slight consternation crossing his face. "Miss Lopez," he began, "while I cannot say I've never attempted to tell Mazikeen whom she can and cannot date—"

"Oh! That's not what I—"

"—I am not certain you would enjoy the experience. She tends to rush straight to the carnality, and I've noticed you're more of a people person," he said.

"No, really I was—"

"Oh, asking for a friend, then?" Lucifer brightened. "Well Maze takes a shine to whom she takes a shine, but I suppose I could make some introductions."

"Lucifer, I really am curious about _you!_ How'd you two meet?"

"Through her mother, I suppose. Lilith sent all her children to Hell as far as I know."

"Lilith as in garden of Eden Lilith. That Lilith?"

"Well I don't mean the one in the Olive Garden."

.  
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.

"Lucifer, can you tell me something?"

"I'm glad you asked, Detective. Yes, you should take that tank top out of rotation. It does _nothing_ for your silhouette. You're the woman who made _Hot Tub High School_ watchable. There's no need to dress like a schoolmarm."

"I— The— Not what I was—" Chloe looked down at her chest, then up again, then exhaled loudly through her nose and recovered. "That whole you-never-lying thing. You really can't lie?"

"Oh I can, Detective. I just don't. It's a lifestyle choice really." A dark smile crossed his face. "I like to remind myself that I'm not the one who lies. All those stories my brothers and sisters and various humans have told about me over the years."

Dan could have sworn Ella's ears pricked up.

"I like to remember exactly which ones are and aren't true."

"Exactly which ones?" Ella prompted.

"Mm-hm," Lucifer turned back to the section of pre-nup he was scanning.

"So... exactly which ones?" she asked.

"Yes, that's right."

"So you could, say, _tell_ exactly which ones?"

"Well I should hope I could tell. I was with me the whole time."

"Ella," asked Daniel. "Are the test results back yet?"

"Right!" said Ella. "Wouldn't want to disrupt the case. I'll go, uh, check on them."

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.

"I really think you should do this one!" Dan watched Chloe pantomime to Ella out of the corner of his eye.

"Still your turn!" Ella wagged a finger.

"Lucifer..." Chloe began. She shot a look at Ella and raised her eyebrows. Ella mimed putting her foot down. "So, uh.... Do you think there are aliens?"

Lucifer looked up. "Where's that coming from?"

"Well, the universe is big, right?" Ella edged in. "So if God made humans, maybe..."

"You're both awfully inquisitive today," said Lucifer, eyes going from Chloe to Ella and back.

"What, _uuuuuus?_ " said Ella with a palm to her collarbone just as Chloe said, "Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Boxers _and_ briefs, by the way."

Chloe pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Well not at the same _time_."

Espinoza turned a piece of paper from the Pile over in his hand. "If anyone wants to get back to work over here?" he said, holding it up.

"Is that from the lawsuit?" asked Chloe.

Dan shook his head. "Between you and me, that stuff reads like Sanskrit."

"Well that's why we have young Rodney!"

Rodney cracked a manic smile over the top of the armful of paperwork that reached up to his chin. "I'm just glad to be part of the—Oops!" half a ton of dead tree spilled out of his arms onto the floor and slid under the table. Ella sighed and bent to help him pick them up.

"But the one Detective Espinoza's looking at is from his divorce—from his first wife," Rodney called from under the table.

"Oh yes. I think I read that over last night. Not the typical story, was it?" asked Lucifer.

"Well? You going to keep it to yourself?"

Lucifer chuckled. "Well the stereotype is that an up and coming man marries a woman who can help him build his wealth, then divorces her for a younger, more attractive but less intellectually threatening woman." He shook his head. "Never seems to occur to them that they can just take the wife along _to_ the new girlfriend's place where they—"

"Focus!" called Ella from under the conference table.

"Right. So it seems the first Mrs. Teagan is only six months older than the second. And he didn't divorce her because of her age. He divorced her after she earned a law degree."

"It's right here!" Rodney's hand shot out from under the table and stuck a roll of paper in Dan's general direction. "They didn't have a prenup, so she forgave alimony in exchange for him paying off all her student loans." He ducked back under the table to what sounded like angry muttering.

"No telling if she thought that was a good deal or a bad one," mused Chloe.

Some papers shuffled under the table. "Uh, says here Caroline Teagan stayed in New Jersey for a lotta years but now she lives in Las Vegas."

"I've seen the pattern before," said Lucifer. "He's afraid of strong women."

"Kathy Teagan didn't strike me as any shrinking violet."

"Yes, but her W2s say she was working as an exotic dancer when they met," said Rodney.

"And she's in a traditionally female job now," Ella called from under the table. "Doesn't matter if she's a genius manager so long as she's only managing kids and caretakers. The kind of guy whose cajones are going to contract up into his belly when he finds out his blind date is a chemist or a CEO or a crime scene tech—"

Chloe, Dan and Lucifer looked at each other over the conference table.

"—is going to shack up with the kindergarten teacher even if she takes his mint condition Masters of the Universe action figures out of the package for her nephew to play with and then puts them in the dishwasher on a bleach cycle."

"She did _what_?" squeaked Rodney.

Ella's left palm and then her right hit the top of the conference table, and she pulled herself up. "'S why I don't let Barbara from evidence fix me up anymore."

"Was this the only photo we got of the house?" asked Chloe.

Ella levered herself onto her elbows and squinted at the picture. "Best we could do that time of night. We should get a few more in this afternoon."

Chloe spun the photo on the conference room table. "If I'm remembering it right, you can't even see the compost heap from where we found Teagan's body. It couldn't have been spur of the moment."

"Whoever killed him had to have been to the house before," Daniel agreed.

Lucifer leaned over between the two of them, giving Dan an unpleasant whiff of overpriced cologne, "Didn't Mrs. Teagan say that her husband liked tricking his business partners?"

"And if you want to make a business partner trust you, you invite them to your home," Chloe followed. "We'll bring them in."

There was a sharp rustling of paper and Rodney thunked heavily into a sitting position on the floor. With one leg behind him, he pulled himself to his feet and deposited the papers in an untidy pile on the table, spreading some of them out with his hand.

"Your victim owned about a dozen different businesses. There was a delivery company, a couple of restaurants, and of course his wife's day care center. Funny bit, though. Business this size tend to be LLCs or private partnerships. This guy had a small-scale corporate arrangement with a stock sharing program. So when I say he owned the businesses, I mean controlling interest. Fifty-one percent or more."

Espinoza narrowed his eyes. "What's that mean?"

"I'm not sure, murder-wise but it's not illegal." Rodney took another breath. "Teagan was being investigated by the Better Business Bureau, but it didn't look like it was going anywhere. Something about substandard materials for the house painting company." He pulled a three by five photograph out from under some receipts. "Oh," he said holding it up. He showed it to Chloe and Lucifer.

Dan ducked under Lucifer's arm to get a look. "What's the problem? House is painted blue," said Dan.

"It was supposed to be orange," said Rodney, holding up an invoice.

Lucifer leaned his chin over Daniel's shoulder. "I've heard the impurities in the water here in L.A. can cause color blindness, but who would want their home colored—" he read the invoice "—'pumpkin spice explosion'?"

"Maybe the original owners of the painting company were annoyed that he got them in trouble," said Rodney. Shying before four pairs of eyes, he added, "Like in a group project, when one person writes 'the professor is a sadistic dingus' in the margins and you all go down for it? Like if you had a perfect academic record before that and you sure it's just one black mark like everyone else—"

Ella and Daniel exchanged a look.

"—but maybe you _liked_ that you had a perfect record. After all, you'd worked hard to have it, and you don't know if it was Marlene or Jonathan who—"

"Okay!" Chloe cut in. "So we'll interview the business partners."

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.

Chloe made a show of checking her notes as she sat across the suspects in Interview Two. "Anthony and Rhonda Sellas of Quality House Painting?"

"That's right," said Anthony, slipping into a chair beside his wife. "What can we do for you?"

.  
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"So you're the proprietors of South Street Late Night Rentals?"

The greasy one with the glasses turned to the oily one with the neckbeard.

" _Former_ proprietors," he said. "After Teagan was done with us, we might as well have been a Blockbuster Video."

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"Sushi-4-Ushi no ōnā ken shefudearu Yamakawa Ichirō to Yamakawa Ken to hanashite iru to omou no wa tadashīdesu ka?" asked Lucifer.

The two men in chef's whites both nodded.

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"Alan Edison and Maurice Johnson of Café Infusion?"

"Uh huh."

Chloe spoke collectedly. "I regret to inform you that your investor Martin Teagan died last night at his home."

Edison and Johnson looked at each other.

"Excuse me, what did you say?"

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.

"So Martin Teagan died last night."

"The hell?!"  
.  
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"Martin Teagan wa sakuya nakunarimashta. Gurosudeshita."

The two men looked at each other.

"Hontōni?!"

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Andrew Sellas blinked hard and leaned forward, slapping both palms down on the interrogation room table. "Someone killed Marty Teagan?!" he asked. He turned to his wife. "This means something. What does this mean?"

"I don't know babe; we should call the lawyer, though," she said, pointedly looking at Chloe on the word "lawyer."

Dan watched Chloe gave her Detective smile. Sellas' surprise looked genuine, but in a city full of actors, anyone might have learned how to pull it off, just like the when Trixie had read _The Last Unicorn_ : normal animals in the unicorn's forest picked up enough magic to disappear whenever a hunter was nearby. 

"That's right," said Chloe. "Can you think of anyone who would want him dead?"

"What, you mean besides us? Like half of L.A." said Mr. Sellas. His wife elbowed him in the ribs. "What? It's not like it's a secret we hated the guy," he said. "They wouldn't have called us here otherwise."

"Yes, honey, but don't tell the police that we didn't like the guy who just turned up dead."

"What? We should lie? Anyway, we didn't kill him," said Sellas, turning back to Chloe and Lucifer. "The man comes in, notices we have a successful business."

"Eh, a kind of successful business," said Mrs. Sellas.

"And he offers to help us expand. Why not? The economy was doing a little better. Time was right for it. Anyway, then he manages somehow to get a controlling interest. Some trick the accountant did."

"And he muscled you out?"

"Heck no. But he ran everything his way. Fired our best employees and brought in cheaper ones. We could either quit and leave the business we worked on for years to build or stay on as his little underlings."

Chloe nodded. "So he ran your business into the ground—"

"Well no," said Mrs. Sellas.

"Not into the ground, no. I mean, painting a house the wrong color once in the while? We can just paint it again. The company wasn't taking the sorts of jobs we wanted any more, but it didn't fail or anything. But hiring all these people we didn't know and didn't like? When we ran it, it felt like a family. Now it's just a job."

"Sucked all the joy out of it."

"But not the money," said Chloe.

"No!" Mrs. Sellas held up a finger. "And that means we can't sue him. We checked! Minority shareholder lawsuit, it's called, but I have to hand it to Teagan, he knew how to run a company."

"He just didn't know how to run _our_ company," said Mr. Sellas. "He broke promises we'd made to long-term customers. Like we had this deal to get all our paint from Rhonda's sister's husband's cousin. Good paint, too."

"Too much nepotism can kill a place," Sellas said, holding up one hand, "but just a little bit can help it. If Jerry over in Fresno knows that his mother and sister will be angry at him if he screws me, then he's not going to screw me. Then the family all gets rich together."

"So he came in and he fired your cousins?"

Sellas breathed out. "Well, he was the one who decided to fire them."

Chloe sat forward. "Who actually fired them?"

Sellas's mouth moved. "He said if I didn't, he'd sell the operation and the building to a real estate developer and, you know, pee on the dust."

"Except he didn't say 'pee,'" said Rhonda.

"You don't mean he made you do it," said Lucifer.

Sellas nodded. "He did. And my aunt still won't speak to me."

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"So he brings in this accountant and she seems all nice and soccer-mommy, and she describes this investment program that we can use to raise money to renovate," said Neckbeard.

"I didn't know operations our size could do that," said Greasy.

"She talked about it like it was just a formality, like every deal is like that," said Neckbeard.

"And the next thing we know, _he's_ got controlling interest, and he says that means he'll sue us if we control our own events budget! He made us cancel all our in-person programs!" protested Neckbeard.

"Dungeons and Dragons night," said Greasy. 

"Gone," said Neckbeard, waving his arms in the air.

"Live screenings of Porn Stars Read the Classics."

"He sold our projector!"

"Fantasy Football, But with Boobs."

"Axed it!"

"That time we had life coaches come in and teach the fellas how to get girlfriends."

"Like three of them _did!_ "

"And it's _over_ ," Greasy banged his forehead against the table, leaving a shiny mark. 

"All our old regulars left! Now all we do is cater to sexually repressed _losers_!" complained Neckbeard.

.  
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.

"So how did Teagan manage to get controlling interest?"

"Well he and his accountant said we could start an investment program to bring in capital," said Alan Edison, rubbing a hand over his stubble-short brown hair. "Change our restaurant from an LLC to a small corporation so we could sell shares."

"Don't those things usually have you maintain at least 51% of the company's stock?" asked Lucifer. "What? I'm good with shady deals. We looked at a program like that for Lux."

"Teagan said they didn't," said Maurice Johnson.

"I see, so Teagan buys thirty percent of your stock, and another investor buys another thirty percent," Lucifer made a rolling motion with his hand, "and then you realize second investor looks exactly like Teagan but with a moustache and funny glasses?"

"Teagan ended up with controlling interest in our restaurant, yes," said Edison. "He fired both sous chefs and my morning chef and told me I had to change the menu. I hate doing substitutions! All my regulars left!"

"And did your business suffer financially?" asked Chloe.

Edison sighed. "We're actually bringing in a little more money than we used to. Mostly because he cut costs and—" Edison's lower lip moved. "—identified alternate revenue streams."

"Mr. Edison."

Johnson put a hand on Edison's shoulder. "Every restaurant has leftovers. You know, bread that's not stale but not fresh enough to give to our guests. Prepped soup that didn't get served. We used to give our leftover food to L.A. Angels. We had a relationship. "

"That organization that feeds homeless teenagers?" said Chloe.

Edison nodded. "They take the food and they give it to the homeless in other parts of the city. That way they don't congregate near our restaurant and bother the customers. It used to be called Secret Sandwich."

Edison swallowed hard. "You see I... When I first came to L.A. many years ago..." he looked down. "And my partner, Roy. After his parents kicked him out... It was a place like that that fed me. I wasn't homeless, but damned near. One grocery bill away from eviction, you get it. It was why I got interested in the restaurant business. It was the making of me.

"The day I had my own restaurant, and I call the people at L.A. Angels and say I wanted to work with them? That was the best moment of my life. I felt powerful in the best way." He blinked back bright eyes.

"It felt good to give back," agreed Johnson.

"He knew, you know," said Edison. "Right when we first talked about working together, Teagan sat there and he listened to the story of how I started the restaurant. He listened like he was interested in being part of it. But he was really just trying to find where he could nip and tuck."

"He sells our leftovers. West Side Recycling I think it's called," said Johnson. "They feed our food to pigs or something."

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"All right," said Lucifer, nodding his head against the stream of guttural Japanese from the older of the two men. "He says he knows everyone says this, but he really did start his business because he believed high-quality sashimi should be accessible to everyone..." Lucifer turned his head to the side and listened some more as Ichiro Yamakawa gestured sharply with both hands. "He wanted to build a reputation like his grandfather did in Kagoshima... He says that Teagan promised him financing to improve the business, but went back on his word..." Yamakawa didn't skip a beat. "He used some accounting trick to make sure Ichiro-san and his son here lost controlling interest of their establishment..." He nodded again... "He allowed each of them to believe they retained twenty-six percent each but in fact they retained twenty-six percent between the both of them..." he nodded again "And once he had controlling interest, he sold off some of their best equipment and hired cheaper staff to help them run the restaurant. Most could not speak Japanese, so Mr. Ken Yamakawa had to translate for his father instead of seeing to his own work. Teagan also forced them to use his own delivery service for all their takeout orders—and the deliverymen were late and rude to the customers, bringing shame on Sushi-4-Ushi."

Lucifer shook his head. "So _that's_ why the gyoza surprise became so plebian? I'd feel betrayed too."

The younger Mr. Ichiro touched the elder on the back and he blinked back something like a tear. He spoke again.

"A man of his skill, who'd spent years perfecting the art," Lucifer translated. "He knew his business wasn't gourmet but he'd never personally skimped on quality until Teagan forced him to. Cheap ingredients and rushing the pickling process. And some kind of..."

Lucifer blinked. "I think he's talking about a preservative. It has the side effect of messing with the ...circulatory system. Oh!"

Lucifer turned in his chair. "Daniel, did the spring rolls we ate last night give you a raging case of morning wood or was it just me?"

"Lucifer!"

"It has to do with the case!" he said, gesturing to the two sushi chefs. "Not only did our victim secretly own the restaurant that provided our sustenance last night, but he also required the use of ingredients that affect heart function. I can't die of a heart attack, but you can!" He turned his head to the side. "Come to think of it... I remember Pierce had to walk out of the room sideways." Daniel blinked through the one-way glass as Lucifer patted his jacket, took out a small notebook, flipped to a page with a list on it. He could make out the words "volcano," crossed out, and "wood chipper," still whole.

"I wonder if he's tried _that_?" muttered Lucifer as he took out a pencil.

Dan blinked. "Who'd want to try out a heart attack?"

At the bottom of the list, Lucifer wrote "priapism." Dan smacked a hand over his eyes.

.  
.  
.

"So there's these two kinds of stock, right?" said Neckbeard.

"Preferred stock and common stock," said Greasy.

"And she asked us what kind we wanted..." said Neckbeard.

"So we said 'preferred'!"

"She did ask us if we knew what that meant," cringed Neckbeard.

"We ...might have lied," said Greasy.

"She totally didn't explain that that preferred stock means we got the non-voting stocks or whatever," said Neckbeard.

"And it's totally the common stocks that vote!" they said at the same time.

.  
.  
.

"Well that only had the usual amount of insanity," Dan commented to Ella as Chloe ushered the last suspects out.

Chloe pressed the com button as they left.

"Did you hear what I hear?" she asked.

Dan cracked a smile.

"They all mentioned an accountant."

.

.

.


	5. Dealing

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"So no answer on aliens," said Chloe, ticking the box on the whiteboard. "How about ...his wings grew back. What's that mean?"

"Green. Ish," said Ella. "You don't think that would tip him off?"

Chloe wrote "WINGS" on the left side of the board, eying the right as she did. "Hell" and "Deals for souls" seemed to waver on the plastic. Chloe had never been religious. In childhood, she'd taken comfort in the idea of heaven, but she'd also believed in Santa Claus. In college, she'd figured heaven and hell were just ways medieval countries tricked peasants into doing all the work: Don't make a fuss when the lords steal your crops and rape your daughters; there's this place called _hell_ and this person called _God_. No need to pick up those torches and pitchforks or seek justice in this life. But if Hell was real...

"So?" she asked. "We're on a roll. What's next?"

"Sorry," said Ella. "I just keep thinking about the case." Ella frowned, staring ahead. "See, this Teagan guy, he made deals with those other people. He ...tempted them with things. They ended up giving away something really important, in exchange for what turned out to be nothing." 

Chloe put her hands on her hips, nodding at the board. "Like the devil."

Ella nodded. "Lucifer makes deals," she looked at the line on the red side of the board. "Heck, _I_ made a deal with him!"

"You did?"

"Yeah, when he wanted my help with that yoga case, but like, before it was a case." Ella's tone was quiet.

"So you helped him find a killer. That's not _bad_ , Ella."

"But I don't know what _he_ got out of it," she said, voice starting to shake. "What if there was something else going on that we didn't know about? What if I find out twenty years from now that I got people hurt?" She breathed in and out. "What if, by just doing our thing every day, we're helping some plan for... I don't know, death and destruction?"

Chloe walked over to Ella and put a hand on her shoulder. "We are going to find out, Ella. We're going to take it slow. We're going to be careful, and we're going to find out."

Ella nodded, touching Chloe's hand. Her palm was cold and damp. "Look, I know you have to go interview the accountant. I'll think of something to ask Lucifer while you're gone, but could you do me a favor?"

"Sure," said Chloe.

"Could you take someone with you? Dan, Pierce, a uniform."

"I'm not afraid to be alone with him, Ella." And where _was_ Pierce, anyway?

"I know he didn't start being the Devil this morning. I know it's irrational, but could you do it for me? _I'm_ scared for you to be alone with him. Just for today."

"All right," said Chloe. "I will find someone, Ella."

"You promise?" said Ella.

"Sure. If it's important to you, I promise."

"And don't tip him off!" Ella closed her eyes, put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath. "One minute, I feel like I can deal and the next I feel like I'm on the edge of a cliff. I don't know how to act around him. Like, some minutes, he just seems normal. I mean..." she waved a hand, "not _normal_ normal, but normal for him."

"I'll just ...stay in here and think of something," Ella nodded to herself. "Best if we don't appear and disappear at the same time."

.  
.  
.

A few more people had decided to finally show up to work, but the place still felt pretty deserted. Chloe saw Dan on the phone at his desk, probably talking with the business bureau. Lucifer was probably—

"Decker," came a voice.

She turned around. "Lieutenant," she said. "I was hoping you could come with—"

"You know you don't—"

She stopped. "No, you go."

"You know you can call me Marcus when it's just the two of us," he said, giving her that sliver of a smile she'd seen the other night of the concert.

"Ah..." Chloe dodged. "So where'd you disappear to this morning?"

His expression froze for half a second. "I do have other cases to supervise, Chloe. So. It was fun to see you away from work," he leaned a little closer. "I had a good time, and I think I know you well enough to say you did too."

"I did," said Chloe. The concert felt like it had been months ago. Away from work, Pierce had been a different man. Fun, but in total control of himself. Completely unlike a certain other someone who spent half his time acting as clueless as a space alien.

"—think maybe we could—"

But ...maybe that was because he _was_ a little like a space alien. Chloe frowned at the realization. How much of Lucifer being weird and irresponsible was because he just didn't understand being human? When Ella had explained about kids, his face had lit up like a lightbulb. What if all it took was to just accept his naiveté at face value and _tell_ him things?

"—somewhere with air conditioning," Pierce was saying.

Lucifer, you can't let Trixie drive the convertible because her feet can't reach the pedals. Chloe found herself nodding. Lucifer, you can't take the cocaine out of the evidence locker even though "no one's using it" because you will get very arrested. Lucifer, you can't change Daniel's driver's license photo to a closeup of a rectal polyp because then he won't be legally allowed to drive. Lucifer, you can't ditch me in the hospital, run off to Las Vegas, and marry some stripper because... Chloe felt her forehead redden. Because...

"Decker, are you blushing?" Pierce asked, a little smile on his mouth.

"Hm?" Chloe looked up. She felt herself go even hotter as she realized she hadn't been listening.

"Decker. It doesn't have to mean anything you don't want it to." He smiled and took half a step closer. "We can go as slow as you nee—" his eyes focused on something over her left shoulder as his smile froze in position. "—I need to go," he said. Then he turned on his heel and left.

"What was that about?" asked Lucifer, walking up behind her.

"I... don't know," said Chloe. The man _had_ gotten shot not that far back. ...pushing her out of the way of a bullet. With arms that could have made the cover of _Men's Health_. She took a breath. Marcus Pierce. When she thought of him as having blood with too many triglycerides and bones that got older every day, she didn't have to remind herself _no, actually, he doesn't_. Add to that he was smart, accomplished, and clearly willing to put her feelings first. An actual, bona-fide adult male _Homo sapiens_.

"Detective, before we head out to find our aiding-and-abetting accountant, I do have a favor to ask."

"Oh!" Chloe remembered her promise to Ella. "Yes, before we go, I wanted to bring—"

"Could young Rodney come with us?"

Intern Rodney ducked his head around the hall corner and waved. "Hi, Detective Decker!"

Lucifer heaved a sigh. "The boy's not completely hopeless but he does need more time under my tutelage."

Chloe looked at Rodney. "I thought your internship was... You know what? Never mind. Sure. Come on, Rodney."

"Excellent," said Lucifer. "Come along, Rodney. Enlightenment awaits."

Chloe stood in the hallway, watching him trot toward the parking garage, intern in tow. She realized with a pang that she and Ella hadn't picked a new question. Perhaps the thing to ask was what her deal with _him_ was.

.  
.  
.

Ms. R. Emerson, CPA, was a thin woman of about forty with mid-quality clothes and a mid-quality red dye job. She let them in and took a seat behind her desk.

"So you were Mr. Teagan's personal accountant?" asked Chloe.

"No, the company is Mr. Teagan's accountant," said Emerson. "I'm one of about three people who handle accounts for Aperture Delivery, Sunny Acres Day Care, South Street Rentals, and Mr. Teagan's personal finances."

"Did you know him well?" asked Chloe.

"In the professional sense," Emerson allowed.

"Did you know about the little prank he was playing on his wife, then?" asked Lucifer.

Emerson turned. "Pardon me? Mrs. Teagan was invited to all of my meetings with her husband and came to about half." But there was a defensiveness in her tone, a blackness behind the ruby.

"Come now," Lucifer purred. "I'm sure we can give you a reason to speak to us." Lucifer leaned in. "What do you desire?"

"I want... I..." Chloe watched Emerson's throat move.

She tried to remind herself that she was here for the case, that the victim—whoever he was and whatever he'd done, deserved justice—but she couldn't help splitting her attention. "I need the eggs," she'd once said to Lucifer, explaining that kept him around because he made her a better detective, but was it true?

"I want to have lots of sex with anyone I want!" blurted Emerson. "I spent _so_ many years following stupid rules that turned out not to matter." She breathed, her thin chest going in and out. "In accounting, the rules are there for a reason. They tell you what your money's up to. But 'don't have sex with the hot guy who's building your kitchen cabinets' doesn't _do_ anything." Her arms lifted from her sides. "I'm only going to look this good for a little while longer. I want to get it while I can still _get_ anything but a middle-aged loser with a beer gut and ex-wives who needs five Viagra at once!"

Chloe managed to keep a straight face.

"Well," Lucifer reached into his pocket. "I happen to run a nightclub called Lux. He flipped out a series of business cards and pulled a pen from Emerson's front pocket. Promise to wear better clothes and go to the salon on the card to have _that_ fixed," he nodded to her hair. He wrote something on the back of one card. "Show my signature to the man at the gate, and he'll let you in. Smile, buy a few people a few drinks. Perhaps you cannot have anyone you want, but there's always someone interested in a few middle-aged adventures."

Emerson smiled, tucking the card into her sleeve like something out of Arabian Nights. And there it was. A deal. She gave a slow blink and Chloe wondered how much she would remember about this conversation. It wasn't power of suggestion. It wasn't hypnosis. It was a real, actual, Hell-given superpower, and—Chloe fought the urge to swallow—she'd been using it to increase her close rate and advance her career for the past two years.

"Mr. Teagan was listing his wife as a co-owner of his businesses in name only," explained Chloe. "She didn't own any of them—" Emerson's line of sight touched the floor. "—not even the one where she worked every day."

Some color rose in Emerson's pale face. "I never lied to Mrs. Teagan. Or to any of them!"

"Maybe not," Chloe managed not to look at Lucifer. "But you told the truth when you knew they didn't understand you. And you kept telling it that way for a long time." Chloe kept her gaze on Emerson.

"You knew his wife had the wrong impression, didn't you?"

"I did," she admitted. She breathed out. "The thing about Mr. Teagan was that he liked to know he had something on you. He was all smiles and friendly on the surface, but if you crossed him—or even if you didn't—he'd pull out a knife you didn't know he had."

"What did he have on you?" asked Chloe.

"I'm sorry?"

"A sharp, educated professional like yourself? Within the strict confines of your sphere—arranging these accounts—you were a shark to his mere barracuda. What did he do to make sure you didn't bite him in half, hm?"

Emerson swallowed hard. "If he'd brought my actions to the ethics committee, presented them in the right way, I could have lost my license."

"And was he planning to divorce Mrs. Teagan?" asked Chloe.

"If he was, he didn't say so to me. And..." she looked at her hands again and then back up. "Rich men? They would say something." She breathed in and out. "I've done it before. The company helps clients hide assets from spouses in advance of divorce. Wives _and_ husbands!" she added.

"Well, at least you're not sexist," said Chloe.

"But Teagan's afraid of capable women," said Lucifer.

Emerson gave him a funny look. "I'm an _accountant_. Other nerds make fun of us."

"Yes, but he's seen you in your element, navigating your profession with ease and skill. He would be intimidated," Lucifer sat forward. "Was he sniffing around any of your less threatening colleagues? Did you get an impression a male coworker was trying to poach?"

Emerson's eyes hit the crown molding. "No..."

"No, but?" Chloe repeated.

"He did spend a lot of time chatting up one of the interns. Patty Sumatris. Graduated from a school people have heard of. She'd been complaining about being bored. But the past few days, she's been giggling like she had a secret. Developing a toolbox of tricks to help someone hide money is exactly the sort of think she'd do, and she wouldn't necessarily know which parts she isn't allowed to do. That would be the sort of thing Marty would want." Emerson breathed out.

"And she's the sort of woman Teagan wouldn't find intimidating?" Chloe asked.

Emerson looked off to the side. "Well ... _he_ wouldn't."  
.  
.  
.

"Hello. How can I help you?" Patty Sumatris smiled like a Wallmart greeter. Where Emerson had put her appearance second, third, fourth and fifth, Sumatris had dressed and coiffed impeccably. Chloe sized her up, remembering the set of a pilot for a high school comedy that hadn't gotten off the ground. Sumatris could have stepped in front of the camera at any moment to play the girl from the yearbook committee. Her makeup was perfect. Her nails matched her jacket. Even Lucifer could have found no fault with her clothes. Morbidly obese was probably the medical term, but, pink-cheeked, golden-haired, with classic red lipstick on her small mouth, every inch of Sumatris' body gave off an air of blooming health. There was just a lot of it to give off.

Patty Sumatris answered chipperly. "I've wanted to become an accountant ever since the third season of _Parks and Recreaction_ ," she said. "It's not quite as exciting as Ben Wyatt made it sound, but I like the challenge." She never stopped smiling.

"We're here to find out who decapitated Martin Teagan," said Lucifer.

"Oh..." Sumatris looked away but still didn't stop smiling. "I'm not sure I should talk about him."

"Miss Sumatris, Martin Teagan is dead. It's important for us to know who might have had a financial motive to kill him. If you have any—"

"Detective, might we cut straight to the chase? I'm sure Miss Sumatris truly wants to help us, deep down," he gave that grin. The one that showed total confidence of what would happen next.

Not, as she'd thought, the smile of a human being who'd practiced a skill with care and discipline. Just a guy who had his own personal cheat code.

Not sure why, she gave him the nod. Then she watched Patty's face.

Her smile faded as her expression went blank. "I want..." she breathed in and out as her face turned pinker with anger "...to punch stupid Etsy bitches _in the FACE!_ " She let out her breath in a gasp. "Do you know how hard it is to look put together at my size? But they go to the secondhand shops, grab all the good stuff, and then cut it up to make little dresses. Stores already sell little dresses! You can walk right in and buy one!" she knifed her palm against the desk. " _I_ have to order clothes online the minute they're available like they're Lady Gaga tickets. The go like hotcakes! I don't get to try them on first," she counted on her thick, perfectly manicured fingers, "and if they look terrible on me because the model is really only a size twelve with pads strapped to her ass? I have to pay to return it. I order clothes based on my measurements, but nooooooooo..." she gasped again. "Do you know how hard, how _expensive_ it is to look professional or, God help me, sexy when the only thing I can find to wear is a tent or five years out of fashion?"

Rodney frowned. "Why not just make clothes yourself?"

Chloe saw Lucifer open his mouth, half-turn toward Rodney, then shut his mouth. Sumatris's pink skin turned red across the bridge of her nose.

"Oh you did not just tell me to make clothes myself! Do you know how to make clothes yourself? Because I don't know how to make clothes myself. It takes years to learn how to make clothes yourself! Years that _I_ spent learning how to be an accountant, something I actually wanted to know how to do!" the rest of her breath left her body in a huff.

Lucifer patted down the sides of his jacket and pulled out a business card. "Here's the card for my dry cleaner. I know for a fact she's trying to start her own tailoring business and is willing to cut deals for new clients."

"I can't afford to have my clothes made to measure," said Sumatris, frowning at the card.

"The cost of good attire has recently been brought to my attention, yes," admitted Lucifer. He waved at her outfit. "But don't tell me you don't know how to start with one high-quality piece and then build an ensemble around it."

Patty looked to the side and nodded. She tucked the card away. "So... What do you need to know about Mr. Teagan?"

Chloe was starting to figure it out. He asked people what they wanted and offered it to them when they were in some kind of dream state. They rose up out of the fog remembering they owed him something. Not their _soul_ like in the stories. Not even something that was necessarily bad for them.

"Mr. Teagan came up to me," said Sumatris. "He said it was a for a special project and he didn't even want my bosses to know. Said he'd pay well," Sumatris made a face. "My best pantsuit just wore out. It'll cost to put a new one into rotation."

"So he offered you a mutually beneficial situation," said Chloe. 

She nodded. "It was more like a dare. He offered me a job as his personal accountant, full salary and health benefits and everything. He said he'd seen my talent and he liked it."

Chloe watched Sumatris talk. The way she smiled any time she wasn't under devilish influence would have made Teagan think she was easily flattered. He'd have thought he could manipulate her in a way that wouldn't have worked on Emerson.

"But first I had to prove I really was as good as he thought I was," Sumatris went on. "I had to hide some things so well that not even my bosses here at the firm knew anyone had touched them." She gave a preening smile. "I'm very good. Top of my class."

"So what did you hide?"

"Words, mostly," she said. "He said I had to make it look like someone else owned the company but really he owned it."

"Yes, so you were helping him hide assets from his wife in advance of a divorce."

"His wife?" blinked Sumatris. "Oh no. Not the wife. It was his business partners at Aperture Delivery and some other place. Did he have someone do that for Mrs. Teagan's day care business too?"

"You don't sound surprised," said Lucifer.

Sumatris shook her head. "I'm not. I'd bet Teagan plays tricks on everyone he works with. That's why I decided not to take his offer," she answered primly. "I looked at the numbers, wrote up a plan and showed it to him, but I didn't actually move any money. Between you, me, and the walls, I don't think he would have done anything with those accounts. Like a guy who buys a gun and keeps it locked up all the time. He just wanted to have it. With the plan I drew up, the partners could still access the accounts and remove what they liked; only when the question of ownership came up would it have made any difference. Anyway, it was all just for practice. And I can learn a lot more here at the firm than I could working on my own."

"And which of Mr. Teagan's business partners found out he was playing tricks?" asked Chloe.

"I don't know," she said. She leaned forward and dropped to a medium whisper. "But I heard Ms. Emerson's phone go _nuts_ a few days ago. Ringing right off the hook."

Chloe updated the whiteboard in her head. "Well you've been a lot of help, Miss Sumatris," she said. "One more question." From the corner of her eye, she felt Lucifer watching her.

"Sure," said Sumatris, her work smile reasserting itself.

"What would have happened if Teagan had showed your supervisor that plan you drew up for him?"

Patty blinked.

"I mean," said Chloe, "you would have used several clients' private information. Even if you had permission to see every one of those files, you wouldn't have had permission to go behind your bosses' backs to do a freelance job, which I'm guessing you did on company time, using company computers."

Sumatris' eyes got a little bigger. Her smile got a little stiffer. The surprise looked real.

"I could have gotten fired," she said in a small voice. She blinked. "That's what he had on _me?_ " she realized. "He just wanted to—" her hand almost came over her mouth, then pulled away, leaving her makeup unsmudged. "Oh my," she said. "Oh my."

Chloe nodded to Lucifer and Intern Rodney and headed toward the door. Rodney shuffled his notebook in his hand and walked toward Sumatris' desk. Chloe looked over her shoulder, wondering what he was on about.

"Uh, Patty?" he said.

"Hm?" she looked up.

"I didn't have other plans for the evening—"

Lucifer turned around and started waving his hands at Rodney.

"—and I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner with me?"

An impeccably sculpted eyebrow shot up. The eye underneath it looked him up and down. "No thanks," she said.

"Really? Why not?" asked Rodney.

"Rodney!" Lucifer gave a whistle. "Here, lawyer! Time to go!"

Rodney gestured to Patty. "But you said to ask out every—hey!!" he protested as Lucifer pulled him over by the sleeve.

"Do you know what you did wrong?"

"No?"

"Well one—" Lucifer paused, forefinger in the air. "No, number one's too hard. _Three_ , she doesn’t have to tell you why she said no. _Honestly_."

"But how am I supposed to learn without constructive criticism?"

"It's dating, not a bloody customer survey!" Lucifer threw his arms in the air.

Chloe watched Lucifer put his hand over his eyes and count to ten. Her mind cleared. A deal. Lucifer and Rodney had made a deal and this was... Rodney was paying for whatever he'd gotten by having to listen to Lucifer go on all day?

"That was three. _One_ was that you said out loud, with words, that you wanted to have dinner with her because you had nothing better to do. Now _I_ can get away with that sort of thing, but if you were in that echelon, we wouldn't have made our little deal."

The word _deal_ seemed to ring in Chloe's head as the elevator took them back to the ground floor.

"I feel like I should say I'm sorry," said Rodney.

"Apology accepted, just try harder next time," said Lucifer.

"No, I mean to—" Rodney pointed over his shoulder. "Never mind."

.  
.  
.

Chloe dropped into the drivers' seat.

"Two," Lucifer was saying as he clicked his seatbelt, "as to your approach to Miss Sumatris. You didn't pay her a compliment or attempt even rudimentary charm, which she read as you not thinking she was worth the—" Lucifer stopped, narrowing his eyes into the rearview mirror. Chloe looked just in time to see Rodney tuck something away.

"Rodney," said Lucifer.

"Yes?"

"What have you got behind your back?"

"Nothing."

"Is it a notebook again?"

"...No?"

" _Give it to me._ "

Rodney made a sad humming sound and handed Lucifer a small yellow pad.

Lucifer shook his head and flipped through the mostly empty pages. "How many of these do you carry around with you?"

Rodney's eyes went up to the left, as if he were counting.

As Chloe pulled back into traffic, Lucifer rolled the window down.

"Do not throw that thing out the window," warned Chloe.

"Why not?"

Chloe caught herself mid-eyeroll. _What if you just accept his naiveté at face value and tell him?_

She took a breath, "Because if everyone threw stuff out the window the whole city would be covered in garbage—"

"I'm hardly _everyone_ , Detective."

"—and because there's a two hundred dollar fine for littering."

"Two hundred dollars or fifteen days in jail," added Rodney.

"And if someone takes out their cellphone and videos you doing mid-traffic notebook polo out of an LAPD vehicle, it _will_ come back to bite me." She looked over at his face. "If I get too many reprimands they'll either demote me or decide I can't control my consultant. And the notebook could hit another driver in the windshield and cause a car accident," she said. A memory of her arm in a sling came back to her. "Remember the last time I was in a car accident?"

"How could I forget? That was..." Lucifer trailed off.

_...orchestrated to put you in danger_ , she remembered, feeling a little chill. She'd have to put that on the whiteboard, but she had a feeling Ella would want it on the red side.

Lucifer cleared his throat, notebook tapping against his leg. "Anyway. Rodney. Your other mistake? Once you ascertain that you are not what the lady desires, immediately move on. Now you identify the next—"

Chloe nearly choked. "What?"

"It's very simple, Detective. If one potential naked fun-time partner isn't interested or isn't interested in what , I just move on to another. Now, Rodney's not at that level yet, but—"

"Since when do you stop pestering someone for sex just because they turned you down the first twenty times?" the words seemed to jump out of her mouth. "Lucifer, sometimes you _still_ ask—" she jammed her mouth shut.

"Well, I—" Lucifer stumbled. "I mean _you're_ —" He started again. "Detective, the..."

In the rearview mirror, Rodney was looking from Lucifer to herself and back, suddenly intent.

"Uh... it sounds like you don't think of Detective Decker the same way as the women you usually date?" asked Rodney.

Lucifer turned around in his seat. "First, I wouldn't say I _date_ them. Second, the _Detective_ is my _partner_ ," his usual bravado slipped over his consternation like a veil. "Besides, I think by now she knows that I am a standing offer. Or seated. Or in this neat little move I learned in—"

"So ...yes?" said Rodney.

Chloe got her eyes back to the road, but Rodney seemed to sit up a little straighter. Carefully watching the back of Lucifer's head, he took something out of his jacket pocket.

There was a muffled cough from the back seat. "So... how long have you known each other?"

"Oh. Someone murdered a friend of mine—"

"—and the other detective on the case thought it was drug related," said Chloe.

"—and the Detective here saw right through _that_ —"

"—and we ended up finding the killer together, but you were _very_ annoying," warned Chloe.

"So I managed to convince her then-boss to tell her she _had_ to let me consult on cases. And I've been a genuine asset to the precinct ever since."

Chloe snorted, covering the sound of a pen on cheap paper.

The stint on the freeway was quiet.

"So..." Chloe said as she eased the car off the highway. "Our victim liked to make deals."

Lucifer huffed, "As if one imitation devil weren't enough." He seemed to be doodling on Rodney's confiscated notebook.

"Aren't you L.A.'s resident expert?"

"Oh? Well in my expert opinion, Detective, Martin Teagan was an amateur." He held the notebook up and flipped the pages.

Chloe opened her mouth, but Lucifer was already scoffing out his answer: "It's easy to tell what someone wants when they already have it. They look at it. They talk about it. They're proud of it. The skill comes from looking into the empty space and figuring out what would fill it."

"Skill? I thought you were just walking heroin," said Chloe. The memory of that conversation seemed glass-gray. She'd thought it was just a rich boy act.

"My abilities may be God-given, Detective, but that doesn’t mean I didn't have to learn. They don't work on my siblings, so there wasn't anyone to practice on until Dad started his little humanity experiment. And it was right about then that he and I had our little falling out."

Rodney watched the back of Lucifer's head. There was the sound of a pen.

"He had me ask Adam what he..." Lucifer's lower lip twitched. Chloe's hands got tighter on the steering wheel. _Adam_ Adam? "I hardly knew what I was doing, anyway," Lucifer went on. "The man spluttered a bit and said something I don't truly remember, probably because I didn't understand what he was getting at. None of the others spoke human languages yet, so... But Dad did start work on Lillith right around then, so perhaps his first desire was _desire_." He gave a little laugh. "To think that if I'd had a different sort of beginner's luck, humans and demonkind... Not to mention I wouldn't have met—" Lucifer snapped his mouth shut. Chloe's heart pounded, remembering the name she'd written and erased from the whiteboard.

What would she have thought of all this if she'd still believed he was just a human nut? An oldest child jealous of a new baby?

"Well, as it pertains to the case, Detective," Lucifer recovered, "Martin Teagan did not identify what his marks wanted and offer it to them. He identified what they _had_ and then took it away. It's easy to tell what makes someone happy if they already have it. They look at it. They talk about it—like you, Detective."

Chloe blinked. "What? I thought your mojo didn't—"

"You have three pictures of your daughter on your desk. You talk about your job even when you're not at work—even on game night—and, if you're truly being honest, the fact that Daniel doesn't hate you the way Matthew Jacobson hates that Becky woman? Oh, you like that. You like it a great deal." 

Chloe opened her mouth but couldn't say anything.

Lucifer gave a laugh. "I never used to pay attention to details like that. You've made a detective of me, Detective."

In the rearview, Chloe saw Rodney smile ...and hide a spare notebook under the seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn't as tight as the others, but the pandemic is not happy fun writing time for me. Sometimes you just have to stop trying to fix it and move forward.


End file.
